one million invisible lines
by Seph Meadowes
Summary: maybe happy homicidal maniacs can get the girl too - a Kol/Caroline collection. I take requests!
1. from your head and into mine

_one million invisible lines_

A Kol/Caroline Collection

This is a collection of unrelated Kol/Caroline one-shots or drabbles. I will primarily be writing in response to requests made or prompts given by YOU! (the reader) So leave a review asking for whatever fic you want me to write, and I just might write it next!

**Prompts can be:**

- a single word or phrase (e.g. "endless," "wanderlust," "yearning," etc.)

- a song lyric or a song

- a quote

- a situation/plot element (e.g. Caroline meets Kol first before Klaus; Kol saves Caroline; Caroline gets sent back to the past; Klaus and Caroline are astronauts planning to repopulate a new planet they've found but Kol has other plans; etc.)

- a genre (please state whether is All-Human or not)

- anything you want to challenge me to write!

- anything you want to read!

So just leave reviews on this story with your prompt/request, and I will do my best to fulfill all of them. I will post all of them in this story (so favorite and/or follow if you want to stay updated).


	2. what the water gave me

**Thank you guys for all the ideas you suggested. I like some of the really creatives one you came up with and some of you are so creative you just took my examples and claimed them as your own. *facepalm*  
**

******prompt: "Water." -angellus08**

* * *

Blood.

There's so much of it. It's everywhere and everything.

Red, crimson and scarlet covering her hands, her arms, her neck and every inch of her skin It's heavy in her mouth while her mind rejects the copper taste and wants to gag and puke it all out until it's _gone, gone, gone_.

She can't.

Because her body welcomes it. Her nature, her dark, cruel, _ruthless_ nature **likes** it, **enjoys** it. And she swallows it down like its water.

Water which is pure and clear and life.

But blood isn't life.

Blood is death.

Because when there is blood, someone is dead.

She's killed again. Oh, she's killed again.

And she tries to wash it away in the waters of the lake, the blood tainting the water pink. She steps into it until the water is up to her waste and she goes down, her lungs screaming as the cold water shocks her body into freezing. And she's solid like ice and she keeps her eyes closed even as her mind goes fuzzy and it's dark, so dark.

Quiet and dark.

There's a force on her chest like a boulder just fell unto and she's sputtering water out. Air making it into her relieved lungs and her vision starts to clear and then there's blood all over the grass, the body of the girl she killed still there.

Her body feels numb as the cool air envelopes it and she groans as her head pounds.

"For fuck's sakes, Forbes, what are you doing?"

She looks up at the boy hovering over her. Dark hair, dark eyes and perfect pale skin. For a moment she thought he was Elijah but remembered that Elijah wasn't in town and Elijah didn't care enough to glare at her like she did something really, really stupid.

Horror dawns on her as she realizes who the boy above her is.

"Kol."

He narrows his eyes some more and he grabs her by the arms and roughly pulls her up and into his arms. He's wet as well from head to toe, his shoes soggy, his clothes dripping and his hair matted to his head.

He still looks oddly attractive even If he does resemble a drowned duck. A_ handsome_ drowned duck.

He's muttering something under his breath and her ears are still filled with water so she can't hear that well. She just looks up at him and says, "Just let me die."

His answer is a swift "No."

She glares up at him and he doesn't back down, glaring down at her, his eyes so dark like polished onyx and then suddenly she's lightheaded like she's in water again, drowning and drowning and she can't breathe but it feels good because…

Why was she even caring if it felt good? She should stop thinking now. Yes, keep quiet, Caroline's head.

"Now just shut up and go to sleep."

She obeys and falls back into oblivion with one last thought: _He's warm_.


	3. you're no good for me

**This is for Bree (QueenVamp). I did hers first because she's sick. Hope you feel better!**

**Prompt - "cancerous"  
**

* * *

It was such a cliché.

There he was the stereotypical bad boy, all dark good looks, cocky smirk and swagger, always armed with witty retorts, suggestive grins and that dangerous, undeniable, irresistible attitude.

He wears dark clothes and drives around in a shiny black car and all the girls want him, all the guys want to be him and he doesn't care for them because he's too good for them, he's high and mighty and no one can touch him.

She's the stereotypical Queen Bee, all blonde hair and blue eyes, sweet smile, runway walk, always ready to steal the spotlight from wannabes and she's got that air around her that practically shimmers as she walks by because she's descended from the heavens and you're all just lowly mortals.

She wears bright sundresses and sometimes dark blue blouses that bring out her eyes, lips painted red, long feather duster eye lashes curled to distraction and the guys want her and the girls want to be her but she's way more awesome than them cause she's the queen of this goddamn school and they all better bow.

There on different sides of the spectrum.

She's light. He's dark.

She's preppy. He has anger issues.

She's a cheerleader. He's one of the boys who skip gym to smoke under the bleachers.

She sits with the jocks and cheerleaders and all the important popular people at the cafeteria. He sneaks out of campus to eat something that doesn't look like Big Bird shat it out.

They should've stayed away from each other, stayed in their own respective bubbles. But it was inevitable, opposites attract like magnet and she's pulled closer and closer to him until her bubble pops and suddenly she's vulnerable and raw and she _hates _him, God she hates him.

Hates him because he can make her _feel_, feel less like the unbreakable Queen Bee she made everyone else think she was, hard as stone, cold as ice – she _wasn't_.

And him?

He's still that dark asshole who just smirks at her when he realizes that he can _destroy_ her with just one word, one gesture, heck, one look! And it's _cancerous _and sick and she just wants to kill him with his poisonous words and stare so she can be well again because he makes her ill, physically and emotionally ill.

He plays with her head. Sometimes he's good, sometimes he's bad. Everything is done to torment her and trick her brain into thinking for a moment that he feels those fluttery feelings she feels for him but then she'll see him kissing some girl and then she remembers, _oh wait he doesn't_.

And she can't take it anymore.

She wants to be free.

She wants this to end.

But he smiles at her, that knowing smile that says "You're mine and I'm going to play with you as long as you amuse me".

She pushes him away because he's close, too close and she wills herself to turn around and run away but her feet disobey, glued to the fucking ground. She's shaking from head to toe and he's just staring down at her with those polished obsidian eyes.

"Enough." She growls.

And he cocks his head to the side and simply says. "It's enough when I say it's enough."

She groans, wanting to pull her hair out. "I can't do this anymore! I can't keep playing these…these sick, _twisted_ games with you! They….you…you're breaking me, destroying me and I can't handle that!"

"That was the point."

She gaps at him, eyes wide and she feels her rib cage quake with emotion. She's so angry and hurt and she wants him to_ feel_ the pain she's feeling. She wants him to hurt.

She slaps him, as hard as she can and is insulted when he doesn't even flinch, doesn't even turn his head to the side as if her blow was nothing. His eyes are dark though, still so dark, always so dark and she wishes for a moment she can read his mind and see _what was wrong with this bastard?_

She huffs and tries to walk away but he grabs her wrist before she can even take two steps and she's flushed against him, all lean muscle pressed up against her underneath expensive clothing. She stutters a gasp and then he cups the back of her head and then he's mouth is-

"No." She pushes him away. "Stop it."

He's still holding on to her wrist. "Never."


	4. hero heroine

**This is sort of crack-ish but whatever I like it (7K+? Whoa!). Keep suggesting guys, the weirder the better!**

**"Save the cheerleader, save the world" a virtual cookie for anyone who knows where it's from.**

**Prompt: "Maybe vampire Kol saves a young Caroline that is like 5 or 6. Maybe theirs a car crash and the cars in the water and her parents die and she's drowning. Like how Elena's parents die. But maybe he can't bring himself to kill the young Caroline even though she smells so sweet. Because she's so pretty and angelic.. Maybe he watches her as she grows up..maybe Bonnie's grams took her in ? I'm not an Elena fan that's why I suggested bonnie. Or he decides to keep Caroline himself or gives her to Bekah to raise? Little Caroline with all the originals Carioline for her! I think it would be cute." -AngelinaGuerin**

* * *

It has been more than eighty years when he awakens in the coffin Nik shoved him into with a dagger in his dark, dark heart. Feeling comes back slowly to his long asleep limbs and color returns to his skin, his vision clears as he's assaulted with color and his ears are welcomed by sound.

His first thought is: _Bloody hell_ because there is a crick on his neck that is fucking killing him. Second thought is: _That bastard is dead_ because he doesn't quite enjoy being daggered and shoved into a coffin, thank you very much and he is going to rip Nik's eyeballs out, those bloody pretty green eyes of his, and play golf with them. Third thought is: _Who are you?_

That is directed at the middle-aged dark-skinned woman hovering over him who is holding the dagger that was previously embedded in his chest. "Kol, I'm Gloria." She greets. "Welcome back to the land of the living."

* * *

Usually prophecies are a little less vague and longer than "Save the cheerleader, save the world" but he guesses humanity has started to devolve in their creativity and this was the result of modernization. It must be because this Gloria woman looked nothing like the women he remembers pre-daggering. Cropped hair and revealing clothes. What's next? Watered down romance novels directed at adolescent girls?

But nonetheless, Gloria leaves him with nothing but those words and a place and date he needed to be to supposedly 'save the world'.

He undaggers Rebekah who stares up at him with her blue, blue eyes and he smiles "Get up, sister, we've got a mission."

They don't undagger Finn because he's a drag.

* * *

They leave Nik a note with the words _'Go off yourself, you hybrid bastard you! And when I'm done saving the world from you and what you have planned, I will get back at you! And when I do, you'll pay! Oh you'll pay. Literally. You still owe me some money, Nik, remember? –Kol.'_

'_P.S. Bekah says __**I hate you**__.'_

* * *

A decade passes with him and Bekah moving repeatedly to avoid Nik cause he's an asshole and avoiding Elijah because, well, he's also an asshole. He's less obvious about it but he still is. Like for example when they were kids, Kol was four and Elijah was nine, Elijah stuffed their uncle's boots with goat shit and blamed it on Kol and _he_ got fucking punished for it and never forgot.

Asshole.

Kol broods to himself as he stands at the end of Wickery Bridge, waiting for something to happen. Gloria hadn't given him an exact time so he's been there since dawn, not wanting to miss it, whatever it was, when it happened.

And now he's bored.

He takes out his phone and starts texting Rebekah, who is in their hotel outside of town. Technology is still new to him but he adjusts better than he would've thought. He really likes the telly and violent video games and this music called grunge metal.

Rebekah is adjusting well too. She thinks the clothes are whorish and the women more vapid than before but she likes the _bloody brilliant_ sexual revolution that occurred because now she could be the hussy she's born to be. Oh and she likes the shoes and The Spice Girls who looked like something out of Finn's worst nightmares.

_I'm bored. What are you doing?_

_Hunting. You still there at the bridge?_

_Sadly. Nothing's happened yet. _

_Hang in there. I'm sure Gloria wasn't lying to you._

_She better not be._

A car is on the bridge now but half way starts swerving and then is off the bridge completely. He watches the car catapult into the water before he takes his coat off and jumps in after it.

* * *

There are three people in the car, a man, a woman and a small girl no older than six. The perfect family unit and he wonders for a moment, swimming outside the car, which one he was supposed to save.

Fuck, couldn't Gloria have given him more detail?

The woman is unconscious and the man isn't. Dark eyes lock unto his, _pleading_ and the man gestures to the small girl in the backseat and Kol knows what to do.

* * *

Rebekah stares down skeptically at the little blonde girl lying on her bed._ Surprised_ would've been an understatement of how she reacted when she saw her brother come back with a _bloody child_. The key to saving the world was a little girl? _Really_?

But nonetheless, she goes along with it and takes the girl from Kol's arms, drying her in the bathroom, dressing her into one of Kol's shirts (which was huge on her) and tucking her into bed. Kol and Rebekah then spend the next hour talking about this new development and what they would do exactly.

What the hell are they supposed to do with a child anyway? Rebekah bitches and whines about this fate. Neither of them had had children before they were turned and they know next to nothing about caring for one despite being more than at the marrying age back then. How are they expected to play mommy and daddy to this little girl?

The little girl starts to stir and it was now or never.

* * *

The little girl is crying.

But maybe Kol shouldn't have answered "They're dead" when she asked where her mommy and daddy are.

Rebekah glares at him and tries to calm the little blonde down, getting annoyed eventually and just compelling her to stop and listen to her.

"You're going to be alright, okay?" Rebekah reassures her, wiping at the tears on the girl's face. She smiles almost tenderly at her before asking. "Now, tell us, what's your name?"

"Caroline Alicia Forbes."

* * *

They have to leave immediately since the cops have probably found the wreckage under the bridge by now and are wondering where the Forbes' daughter has gone. They get on a plane to New York since they've always liked big, bustling cities and it's easier to hide when you're among a crowd.

Kol buys a loft in the Upper West Side and Rebekah decorates Caroline's room in lavender and cream and buys her dolls and pretty dresses. Rebekah then enrolls Caroline in the private school for girls nearest to them under the name 'Caroline Mikaelson'.

Kol picks her up at dismissal and on weekends Rebekah takes her out shopping.

* * *

Rebekah adores Caroline which isn't much of a surprise since Bekah's always hungered for love and attention and Caroline loves openly without thought or abandon. She looks up to the older girl like a big sister, mimicking everything Rebekah does and taking all of Rebekah's advice about anything to heart.

Rebekah finally finds someone to love her and she can dress up like a doll because Caroline looks exactly like those expensive porcelain dolls Rebekah is so awed with. Caroline is all blonde curls, rosy cheeks and blue, blue eyes. Rebekah must be preening with the fact that Caroline looks a lot like her.

At least she has someone that has the same mental capacity as her now.

* * *

Caroline looks up to Kol as her big brother. Kol's used to caring for Rebekah, they were always together growing up since he's only a few years older than her and he still remembers bossing Henrik around to do his chores for him because he could.

But Caroline is different from Rebekah and Henrik. She's sweeter and kinder than Rebekah and louder and more passionate than Henrik. She is a bundle of sunshine and unending energy and even with all his vampire stamina, he feels _exhausted_ after being forced to play with her all day.

He collapses unto the comfy couch in their living room and wills himself to just _die _before Caroline's at his side again, grabbing his arm and trying to tug him away, whining, "Kolie, let's play!"

Maybe he should've stayed in that bloody coffin.

* * *

He and Caroline arrive home one Friday afternoon after school and Kol has to resist the urge to tear out his ear drums when he hears Rebekah's cries of passion from her room.

"_Oh God, oh God, oh God!"_

Caroline looks up at him, worried. "What's going on? Is Bekah in danger?"

_"You're killing me!"_

Caroline, thinking that her big sister is in danger, tries to run towards the girl's room but Kol speeds up to her and stops her, taking her into his arms and getting the hell out of the building.

* * *

He needs to distract Caroline and so he takes her to Dairy Queen. She orders the sundae cone with sprinkles and he just gets the chocolate-covered one since Caroline says sprinkles are for girls.

He nibbles on his ice cream, trying to forget the sounds that have traumatized him completely. Nothing can make him forget and he once again wishes for death.

Caroline's mouth is covered in vanilla ice cream and she looks up at him curiously and asks, "What was Bekah doing earlier?"

He glares up at the skies and thinks _I'm going to kill that bitch_.

* * *

"What did we agree about on not taking people home?"

"Don't get caught?"

* * *

Rebekah is miffed that he grounded her but it's her own fault anyway so he just ignores her when she huffs and glares at him.

They're having dinner, take out because none of them can cook and they're having Indian food because it's Wednesday. Caroline is eating her curry slowly and looking back and forth between her two adopted siblings, not able to ignore the tension in the air.

Then the silence was broken.

"Caroline," Rebekah starts tersely, eyes focused on her brother. "Did you know Kol grounded me?"

Caroline blinks and doesn't say anything.

Rebekah continues her passive aggressive rant. "_Grounded me_, like I'm a _child _because he says I'm immature and that's rich coming from the boy who used to draw cocks on all of Nik's drawings-"

"Who's Nik?"

The two vampires freeze and Rebekah's hand goes to cover her mouth as she realizes what she has let slip, eyeing Caroline with something akin to panic. Kol shoots Rebekah a dirty look before answering Caroline's question. "Nobody, sweets."

Caroline accepts this for a moment before asking, "What's a 'cock'?"

* * *

It's Caroline's seventh birthday and they can't believe it's been a year since he brought her into their lives. Rebekah wants to throw a big party for Caroline, inviting all her friends at school and using some kind of theme but Kol refuses since he doesn't want a bunch of snotty little kids in his home.

So it's just the three of them at Coney Island, Rebekah and Caroline giggling as they ride the Spinning Cups. Kol watches from the sidelines and doesn't stiffen when someone familiar stands beside him.

"Hey Elijah,"

His older brother doesn't greet back, eyes narrowed and watching the two blonde girls laughing without a care. "What are you doing, Kol?"

Kol shrugs. "Saving the world."

Elijah lets out a sigh of pure exasperation. "No, what are you really doing, Kol? Playing house with Rebekah and that little girl? How is that going to 'save the world' as you put it?"

"A witch told me it was all part of a prophecy."

"And we all know how reliable prophecies are." Elijah counters sarcastically before turning to him fully with a very serious look. "What happens if all of this isn't real or is just in vain?"

"The world ends." Kol answers simply. "The freaking apocalypse comes and we all die."

Elijah shakes his head. "All of this just because of a little girl?"

"Didn't all this start with that?"

Kol doesn't have to mention Tatia's name for his brother to get what he means.

* * *

Thankfully, Elijah leaves before Caroline can see him and Kol goes with them on the Ferris Wheel. Caroline clutches unto him in fear as they go higher and higher until they can see the world around them.

"Open your eyes, sweetheart." He coaxes her and her blue eyes widen as she stares into the view of the night, all bright lights that twinkle like stars from another galaxy.

She doesn't let him go though and he finds it ironic she can find safety in a monster.

* * *

"Kol…"

His bionic hearing picks up on Caroline's whisper even in sleep but he rolls over to ignore her anyway.

"Kol?"

A finger pokes him on the spine. He grunts.

"Kol!"

He finally gives up ignoring her and turns over and sits up, drowsily eyeing her with one eye open. "Yes, Caroline?"

"There's a monster in my closet." She answers in agitation, shaking in her pink Barbie nightgown and bunny slippers.

He glances at the clock on his nightstand. 11:45 blinks up at him in bright red letters.

Oh for fuck's sakes!

Deciding she can just get eaten by that imaginary monster, he tries to lie back down but Caroline jumps unto his bed and grabs his arm, trying to pull him with her. "Please, please, Kolie, go kill it?"

He mutters something into his pillow before getting up. Caroline follows as he takes his trusty baseball bat and goes into her room. He flicks on the lights and approaches the closet, opening it and seeing all the bright-colored dresses Rebekah bought Caroline.

He turns to where Caroline is standing at the doorway and takes a step backward into the closet. "See, sweetheart? No monsters in here."

Well, there _is_ but she didn't know that as she run towards him and hugs the monster in her closet.

* * *

Kol refuses to let Caroline watch any of the Disney films, thinking their deceitfully idealistic tripe, meant to brainwash little girls into believing into stupid things like _happily ever after_ and _love at first sight_. It's all tripe.

Instead he reads her fairytale books and not the watered down mainstream versions but the dark, original, twisted ones that he heard when they first were written.

Caroline's in tears by the time he's done with _The Little Mermaid_ and he tries to ignore that clenching in his heart as she sniffles and he wipes away her tears with a tissue from the box Rebekah always keeps ready there since Caroline's a bit of an emotional girl, isn't she?

She bloody _cries _when she sees a stray cat digging in a garbage can.

"Why did Ariel have to die?" Caroline sobs out, eyes full of confusion and sorrow. "Why didn't she just tell the prince that she was the girl who saved him and they could've married and lived happily ever after?"

"Because the prince was a prick," He answers and it doesn't abate her crying. In fact, it makes it worse and he winces when she starts wailing. "Oh don't cry, sweetheart. It's okay."

"No, it's not okay!" She protests. "Ariel died!"

"Well, everybody dies eventually."

She looks up at him with her big watery blue eyes. "Will you die?"

He nods. "Someday,"

By a hunter, a werewolf or just the end of the fucking world but the latter he is trying to prevent, that's what he is doing there with this small, fragile little girl who looks heartbroken at just the _idea_ of him dying.

She cries out and her arms are around his neck, her wet cheek against his neck and he pats her back gingerly in shock. She mumbles something into his skin and he wouldn't have heard it if it wasn't for his super hearing. "I don't want you to die."

* * *

A year passes and it's Caroline's birthday again. She's getting too old for toys now but Rebekah still gets her a stuffed toy, a big pink teddy bear almost as big as Caroline and the blonde, now nine, hugs it to her like it's her new best friend.

Rebekah smiles fondly at her. "What are you going to name it?"

Caroline answers, "You pick."

Rebekah glances at Kol for a second, just a millisecond before she turns back to Caroline. "Nik."

* * *

Years pass quickly for mortals since they know their time has a limit and they have to cram everything they want and need to do in a short number of hours. They have so little time to do everything, wasting it all away on useless things until it just ends. Some die young, some die old, some die violently, some die peacefully but it's all the same in the end. They're all dead.

Kol prefers his meals fresh but ever since Caroline squeezed into the picture, he and Rebekah have to be more subtle about their feeding habits. So blood bags, lots and lots of blood bags from a supplier they threatened to torture and kill if he says anything. And he hates the stuff, his predatory instincts itching to kill weaker prey and taste the warm blood in his mouth.

But you can't have everything.

So blood bags and lots and lots of blood bags, his favorite being A+ especially when he warms it in the microwave and it isn't so bad. He just gets out his morning cup from the microwave and takes his first sip when Caroline bounds down the stairs.

He swears inwardly and tries to swallow it all as quickly as possible but some of it drips down his chin and he doesn't wipe it away fast enough because Caroline's looking at him with not fear or disgust but _fascination_. The taste of the blood has brought out his vampire face and he wills it to go away and back to normal.

Caroline still doesn't look scared though. She's ten now and old enough to finally notice the weird things that her caretakers do like the stash of blood in the cooler they always keep locked, the blue stone rings they never take off (she knows because she's tried to wear Bekah's one time and she got really mad) and the purple herb that Rebekah always mixes into her food and drinks.

Kol doesn't know what to do so he just stares at her and Caroline steps forward until she's only a foot from him. "I think it's time for the talk."

* * *

Rebekah had another talk with her just after her birthday. Kol and Rebekah had flipped a coin on who got to explain to Caroline the birds and the bees and Rebekah lost. Kol just hopes she didn't traumatize Caroline in any way since Rebekah isn't known for her subtlety. It seems to have worked out though because Caroline looks fine.

Of course, now is the time for the _other_ talk and he tries not to fidget as he sits down across from her on the living room, her on the couch, him on his favorite chair and begins his story.

He tells her everything, his life as a human, his parents, his siblings, Henrik's death, their turning into vampires, Nik killing their mother, traveling the world and experiencing different cultures for decades and decades until he got daggered by Nik, awoken by Gloria and then it all goes full circle back to Caroline.

Caroline blinks. "So I'm supposed to save the world somehow?"

"Well, I don't really know. Gloria was quite vague and-"

"How am I supposed to save the world? I'm just a girl. Heck, I just turned ten! I don't even have a bra yet and-"

Kol sighs. "Caroline, no one expects anything from you._ I'm_ going to save the world. You're just the key to it somehow."

"Key? As in like Dawn from _Buffy_?"

* * *

Caroline doesn't really understand the whole saving the word thing but she quickly accepts that her caretakers, her adopted siblings, are vampires and that they drink blood to survive, the same way she can survive on nothing but chocolate milk and they can't walk in sunlight without specific jewelry and that they've killed millions of people, sometimes not even for food.

Okay, most of the time, not even for food.

Caroline had bulked when Kol explained his time as Jack the Ripper and she seems morally conflicted about the entire thing but quickly just lets it go because _she loves them_ and the only thing that makes her sad is that they would live forever and like all humans, she will die eventually.

* * *

Kol remembers Elijah's brief stint in college when he studied psychology. And late nights tend to get tedious so Elijah would share what he learned and some of it Kol tuned out except for certain things like Freud and his kinky complexes.

Kol's an amateur in the matters of the mind but he knows enough to understand why Caroline is developing a crush on him. He is the only male in her life, one she spends a lot of time with and she looks up to him as a hero because every time there was a noise or thunder she'd run to _his_ room and not Rebekah's, knowing he'll keep her safe from anything.

The matters of the heart, Kol has avoided his whole life. There have been girls, many, beautiful girls but they just were just there to warm his bed and none have made him feel anything except primitive lust and maybe some affection if they're particularly good in bed. But _love_ them? No, Kol, has never been in love, he can safely say.

He's loved two women in his life and they were both related to him. The former got killed by his brother and the latter he lives with and drives him up the wall. He does understand platonic love but romantic love always seemed rather pointless and misery-seeking.

And Caroline is the third woman he's loved. Heck, she's not even a woman yet, she's a girl. And it'll stay platonic, no matter how she smiles and dreams about him because she always knew he'd protect her from anything, even from himself.

* * *

Caroline's thirteenth birthday is greeted by blood and he smells it all the way from his room as Caroline rushes out of hers and into Rebekah's, waking the other girl in blind panic. He tries to listen in to the conversation but is still too sleepy to care so he tries to go back to sleep.

But his brain won't shut up.

Caroline. Blood. Must help her.

He groans.

Oh man.

He gets up and goes out into the whole way and stops outside Rebekah's room, knocking impatiently as the two girls inside continue talking to each other in squeaky tones. The door opens a second later and Rebekah's head pops out. "What?"

"Is Caroline alright? I smelled blood-"

"It's the miracle of life, woman stuff, now go away."

She slams the door in his face.

* * *

It's kind of daunting to know that the girl who he saved from dying all the while ago is now technically a woman, a tall, blonde and pretty woman who could now have children, the ultimate gift of life.

It freaks him out and he keeps an extra close watch on her when she does anything because if anything bad happens to her, there would be blood and plenty of it. It will rain red by the time he's done.

He doesn't let her go out on dates, something both her and Rebekah find ridiculous. It's not that he doesn't trust her. It's just that he doesn't trust those disgusting, vile creeps with their sweaty, grabby hands, out to corrupt his Caroline.

Wait, _his Caroline_? His?

Since when is she his? Isn't she just the key to saving the world? Or another sister he had to take care of? Why is he getting possessive and calling her his?

_Because she's mine, _a petulant voice said in his head, _mine_.

* * *

He knows it's Caroline's time of the month, not just by the smell of blood he can't ignore but by her moods. Sometimes she gets angry at him for no reason. He'll just be standing there, minding his own business and she'll start screaming at him because he looked at her like she's _fat_.

What the hell?

He talks about this with Rebekah who just laughs and explains to him that it is natural, a girl thing. Then she scowls when he asks why she is hormonal too when they both know she couldn't have children.

* * *

At fifteen, Caroline starts to rebel like most teens do and she does this by sneaking out with a rich bastard from the Upper East Side who is just playing her to get under her skirt.

Kol tries to warn her against the jerk, stop her,_ fucking ground__ her_ when she refuses but she keeps on and knows his habits well enough to get away from the loft and meet up with the slimy prick and his grabby hands that like to wander everywhere as if he has more than two.

He brings her back every single time, her whining and glaring at him as he drags her away from the eight-handed wonder. This time he gets really pissed off when he sees Caroline pressed against the dirty alley wall, her mouth being slobbered by the freak and his hands going to forbidden areas that he should not have access to.

Kol doesn't even think twice and he rips the son of a bitch away from her and snaps his neck with a flick of his wrist.

Caroline lets out a scream and stares down at her now dead boyfriend's corpse, horrified at what Kol's done. Anger overcomes her shock very quickly though and she shoves him as hard as she can. "What is wrong with you? Why the fuck did you do that?"

"He was all over you like a fucking octopus!"

"So? He's my boyfriend!"

"_Was _your boyfriend and now he's never going to touch you again."

"Because you killed him!" She shrieks, her face turning red. "Couldn't you have just compelled him to leave me alone?"

He scoffs. "Like that would've stopped you,"

She lets out an angry cry and shoves him again. "I hate you!"

He rolls his eyes as if to say _whatever _and just grabs her and super speeds away before her loud shouts attract attention.

* * *

Caroline starts to complain about him a lot to Rebekah who tries to defend him but sometimes they gang up on him when they both think he's done them wrong when only he's trying to keep them from doing stupid things like fuck foul buffoons.

Is it wrong to try and keep them from acting like strumpets? If anything, he's doing them a favor! They just can't see he's acting like an overprotective father because he cares about them. If he doesn't care he'd just let them do what they wanted.

Rebekah understands a bit more than Caroline because the latter is still so young and fickle, she feels less protected and more suffocated by his actions. She screams at him a lot these days, says cruel things that even make him wince and it finally cumulates to her running away in the middle of the night with a note for him, _'You blood-sucking murdering fucker, just die and go to hell. I'm done with you and I'm never ever coming back so good riddance! –Caroline'_

'_P.S. __**I hate you**__.'_

* * *

Kol finds her not that far away. She's sneaked into Coney Island and is sitting at a bench, overseeing the Carousel. A few years ago, he watched her on one of the horses, giggling and waving at him as Rebekah took pictures. _"Kol!"_ She yelled when she got off and ran towards him.

What happened to that little girl?

The answer? _She grew up_ as all kids eventually do.

She doesn't look up when he takes the seat beside her on the bench, he sits close, his thigh brushing hers. He doesn't say anything and she doesn't either. It's only until she lets out a tired sigh that he finally breaks the quiet.

"I'm sorry. I realize that I may have been too constricting on you but Caroline," He says. "I just don't want you to get hurt. I promised you I'd never let anything bad happen to you and I'm going to make sure of that."

"I know," She finally looks up at him; blue eyes soft unlike the glares he'd been getting lately. "And I understand. But you can't lock me away from the world forever. I'm a person, not a doll."

He gives her a small smile and wraps his arm around her shoulder and pulls her to him for a one-sided hug. "Okay. You're right. I'll try to give you more breathing space."

She grins at him, all loveliness and sweetness now and he feels lighter, all the anger and resentment from her has weighed him down a hundred years and he instantly feels relief at the return of some of her sunshine.

Her smile drops a little and with insecurity in her eyes, she asks, as if afraid, "Why do you even care so much about me? Is it only because I'm some kind of plot device for saving the world?"

"No," He shakes his head. "Because you're Caroline."

_And you're mine._

* * *

Caroline's crush is back in full force.

It didn't bother him before because all she did was smile at him and cuddle with him on the couch when they watched something on the telly but now that she is older and has learned a thing or two from watching Rebekah all these years, she does other things. Like brush against him when she passes by him, look up from under her thick eyelashes and give him this heated look when he's talking to her and use any excuse to give him a kiss (never on the lips but it still does things to him).

Still, he tries to ignore it because it's weird. He practically raised her since she was six and now she is sixteen and in his time that was marrying age already but _come on_, he is not going there. He is not touching her or responding to her_ seduction_ of him, no matter how effective. He is not.

He comes home one day to find the loft in darkness. Rebekah called earlier to tell him she's off investigating leads for their mission of saving the world and he just spent time talking to a witch about the exact same thing and really, saving the world and being a hero is hard, tiring work since he doesn't really have much to go on.

Still, he persists.

But right now, he just wants to get to bed and sleep it all off. He doesn't bother to turn on the lights since his superior eyesight lets him see clearly to get to the hallways and into his room. He assumes Caroline is already asleep since it is late and it's a school night.

He doesn't expect her to be in his room, dozens of scented candles lighting up the room and there on his bed, wearing a revealing almost see-through black negligee was Caroline.

His jaw drops several centimeters to the ground, he's sure it's by his feet. And his eyes, they can't look away from the sight of Caroline in sheer black silk, her skin rosy, soft and perfect, her hair framing her face in loose blonde curls, her lips painted red and her eyes glimmering despite the shadows in the room.

God have mercy on his damned soul.

She smiles happily at him, albeit a bit nervous. "Kol, hi!" She pats the empty space in the bed beside her. "Why don't you join me?"

That snaps him out of his daze and he stares at her in horror and disbelief. "What are you doing?"

She bites her lip coyly. "What do you think?"

He inwardly groans.

Why did the deities up there have it out for him? Sure, he's killed, tortured and led a rather hedonistic lifestyle but he's not sick enough to go after underage girls. He still has some morals, few as they may be.

With purpose, he stalks towards the bed and stops right before the bed. Caroline looks up at him with hope and fear and insecurity and she has never looked more appealing to him and for a moment he thinks _fuck it_.

Why not? She wants him, he wants her, why not want each other? And maybe when they've sexed this all out, things will go back to normal.

But he knew they wouldn't. Things would never be normal again. Because now he has this image of her, so innocent and sinful at the same time, in his head, forever to haunt him at night while he lay awake in his cold bed.

He couldn't do this. Not to him, not to her. He wouldn't let her give up her _fucking virtue_ to him because she fancies herself in love with him. He isn't that much of a monster.

"Get out." He intones passionlessly, trying to keep his eyes cold.

Her blue eyes widen in shock and hurt as his rejection sinks in and he couldn't handle it. Oh God, he couldn't- He shouts, "Get out!"

She lets out a whimper and scrambles off the bed and runs out of the room, the door slamming loudly. He closes his eyes in frustration and shame and sits down on his bed, his head in his hands.

* * *

Things are definitely more awkward after that. Rebekah notices the next morning when Caroline refuses to go out of her room for breakfast. And Kol refuses to answer her worried questions, trying to disappear into his cereal.

Rebekah knocks on the door but Caroline doesn't answer so she goes in and talks to Caroline for what maybe an hour.

Rebekah finally emerges later while he's doing the dishes and he isn't expecting the punch she lands on his face. He's suddenly just on the floor, his jaw aching and he's staring up at his sister with shock. "Bekah, what the hell?"

"Listen here, Kol Mikaelson and listen well." Rebekah starts heatedly. "I know that you have your issues, everyone in this family does and for some reason you can't let yourself fall in love and be _fucking happy _with someone and before that was okay. But now _it's not. _

"Because Kol, you're going to lose _the best thing_ that's ever happened to you, you'll lose her cause she'll move on eventually and you'll be stuck living the rest of your immortality all alone!"

She throws up her hands in exasperation. "Is that what you want to be? All alone forever? Why do you keep insisting that you're this _unlovable monster_ when I know you _can_ love and you _do_ love her? Do you even see the way you look at her? The way I desperately wish someone would look at me?"

He gets to his feet wordlessly, unable to look her in the eye. "I'm trying to keep her safe."

"From yourself?" Rebekah growls. "Kol, you are an idiot, truly an idiot."

"We can't be together, Bekah!" He tried to reason with her. "We're on a mission to save the fucking world and-"

"Oh, fuck the world!" She shakes her head. "Why does it matter if you become a hero when you're miserable?"

He doesn't know how to respond to that so he just walks out of the kitchen, Rebekah's protests following him.

* * *

Caroline doesn't get out of her room for lunch and Rebekah lets it pass, though eyeing the doorway, as if waiting for her to come out any second now. Kol refuses to even glance at the doorway and just eats his food.

By dinner time and Caroline hasn't gotten out, Rebekah has had enough and jumps out of her chair, stalking towards Caroline's room and drags the blonde teen out, despite the girl's indignant protests.

"Bekah!"

"Shut up! I've had enough!" She pulls Caroline into the kitchen and forces her to sit down on her usual seat, across from Kol and they catch each other's eyes for a moment before looking away quickly. Rebekah growls. "You two are going to talk this out now and I mean _now_. I will be in the hallway in case you try to escape and if you do - _Kol_, I will rip out your spine and use it as jump rope!"

Kol grimaces at the threat and watches Rebekah as she leaves the kitchen. He looks at Caroline and she's staring down at the table, biting her lips, looking so forlorn he would let Rebekah rip out his spine for doing this to her. How did everything get so fucked? How could he allow this to happen?

"I'm sorry." He says. "I'm sorry. I just…I shouldn't have shouted at you last night, I should've been more gentle and I'm sorry if I hurt you. I _never_ wanted to do that. I just…I don't know what to do anymore, okay? I don't know so I'm sorry."

Her eyes are watching him with something akin to an ache like it hurt her to even have to look at him. And her voice is soft and low as she speaks. "I'm just embarrassed. God, I'm _so stupid_. I shouldn't have tried to come on to you when I know you don't feel the same way. Oh, I'm so stupid-"

He cuts her off. "Stop it. You're not stupid."

"But I am!" She sighs. "I should've known you wouldn't love me back and-"

"Wait," His joints all locked as he stiffens in surprise. "What do you mean by 'love'?"

She blushes and chews on her bottom lips some more. "Well, I love you, you know. Isn't it obvious?"

He suddenly couldn't breathe anymore and he is sure he was dying from the dark spots in his vision. He doesn't even know how he ends up on the floor, Caroline hovering over him worriedly and trying to shake him awake. He groans as he looks up at her and asks, "You love me?"

She lets out a sigh of relief before she smacks him on the chest. "Yes, you idiot, I love you!"

He sits up, eyeing her like she has two heads. "But _why_?"

She smiles gently, _lovingly _at him. "Because you're Kol,"

Then before she loses her nerve, she moves forward and kisses him. Her lips are soft and a little chapped but she is warm and sweet and it is perfect.

Doubt still lingers on his mind though but a bigger part of him that part that sounds oddly like Rebekah just says _Just roll with it, you fool_ so he kisses her back and lets everything go.

* * *

Three essential things you need for saving the world:

1) A car.

2) Sidekicks.

3) Back up plans.

Plan A is about to be launched.

* * *

**MYSTIC FALLS TRIBUNE NEWSPAPER HEADLINE:**

Seventeen year old Caroline Forbes was found unconscious outside the Mystic Falls Hospital after having been missing for eleven years ever since her parents' accident where they lost their lives. Authorities searched for the little girl and it was only now that she had finally appeared and with severe memory loss, having no memories of her time gone from her home.

Kol taps on the window of the Bennett home. Caroline smiles when she sees him, opening the window and inviting him into her room. The Bennett family took her in after the hospital gave her the all clear on her health, despite the 'memory loss' and gave her the spare room they have since she has no relatives that could take her in and the Forbes house has long been sold.

Bonnie Bennett had been excited to see her since they used to be friends as children but Caroline remembers very little of that life, her memories few and far in between. It feels like her life didn't start until she met Kol.

"How goes the town's newest celebrity?" Kol asks with a grin as she hugs him tightly, as if the last few days they've been apart have been years. "You're quite the commodity now, amnesia girl."

She grins up at him. "Hey, it was your alibi. I just went with it, no matter how fucking cliché."

"Hey, I'm saving the world here so screw clichés!"

"You're adorable." She giggles and pulls him down for a sound kiss, he responds eagerly and plunders her mouth with his taste and he moves so fast she is already on her back on the bed, him above her, peppering kisses on her neck. His hands are busy trying to undress her and she reaches up to kiss his jaw. "You're insatiable."

"Look who's talking, nymph." He quips and she laughs, pushing him off her until he's lying beside her. She cuddles up against him instantly, her head on his collar bone and he lets out a happy sigh. "So, first day of school tomorrow, you know what to do?"

She lets out a noise. "We already went through the plan so many times already-"

"_Caroline_."

She rolls her eyes but tonelessly recites, "Befriend the doppelganger, prevent the Lockwood brat from turning into a werewolf, help Bonnie learn that she's a witch and lure Damon Salvatore into the woods so you can beat him up with a baseball bat – um, how does the last one help in saving the world?"

"It just does." He smirks. "It's all part of Plan B."

She opens her mouth to ask but closes it again, realizing that whatever answer he would give would not illuminate her in any way because Kol's mind works in very mysterious and downright strange ways. "Whatever." She cuddles closer to him and starts to drift off to sleep. "Wake me up, okay? I have a very busy first day of school."

"You got it."

And so that is how Kol Mikaelson saved the cheerleader. Because the prophecy stated that he had a destiny to fulfill and he followed it and it was even better than he thought. He had Caroline and he was going to be a hero because he was going to save the world. Of course, that's a whole other story.


	5. higher than the blue in the sky

**So this is actually not as happy and fluffy as the person who requested it wanted but my muse refused to cooperate and so I ended up with this hot mess and none of it makes sense and I hate it but not enough to write something else. I hope you guys still like it though.**

**Prompt: "I'd like to see a role reversal kind of fic.. one where Caroline is the vampire and Kol is her all-human prey (maybe prey is the wrong word... because I don't actually want her to eat him.. lol). Maybe she turns him so that he can be with her?" -CoffeeFanatic87**

* * *

Kol is the black sheep of the family. Not even Nik who they found out a few years ago is Esther's bastard child with another man and it sort of explains now why Mikael always seemed to hate him.

Besides the fact that Mikael is a hard father to all his children, wanting them to succeed as he did with his life and be independent and be somebody in this world. Mikaelsons are known to be determined privileged jerks who always have to have their way and when they didn't, someone gets hurt.

_Ruthless_, as his best friend, Jeremy Gilbert called it when Kol explained to him about his family.

Rebekah and Kol are spoiled rotten and have no qualms destroying someone for the sake of amusement. They inherited their father's determination and their mother's persistence and they never gave up when they wanted something.

Yes, they are ruthless, cruel and shows no mercy when someone is in their way.

Elijah who is known for his moralistic disposition will willingly set people on fire if it lighted (excuse the pun) his cause and Finn, obedient and loyal to their mother, would kill for her if she asks him and not even feel guilty about it, even Nik who is not even a real Mikaelson uses people like pawns on a chess board.

But what set Kol apart from his siblings and made him the proverbial black sheep of the family is that he is apathetic to everything. He doesn't really give a fuck about anything really. Video games, drugs, booze and sex are just distractions, to occupy his mind with until he can go to class. And even when he's sitting there listening to teachers drone on, his mind is just wandering back to said distractions, going round and round in circles.

His siblings care about a lot of things, whether small or big. They are passionate and they give a damn about what they give importance to. So why is Kol such an anomaly? Why does he have no passion in him while his siblings are brimming from top to bottom with fire?

The answer?

He's lazy. Very lazy, so lazy to the point he'd rather not care about nothing than to let it consume him.

His family is the prime example for this. Rebekah with the boys who play with her heart, Finn with their mother's wants, Elijah with his advocacies to better the world, Nik with his art to touch the masses and his parents who are obsessed with making sure they and their children leave a mark in this world.

And what did Kol care about? Nothing.

And no one in his family could handle this truth so they push him into trying anything worthwhile or just something that doesn't kill his brain cells. But they all just end up disappointed when Kol walks away and they've failed again.

It angers Mikael the most because he wants all his children to go to Ivy League schools like he and former generations of Mikaelsons did. Elijah went to Yale, Finn to Princeton and Nik to Harvard – all graduating with honors.

Bekah, who was still in high school, is already preparing to enter Brown next year. Everyone expecting her to graduate valedictorian in her batch because she's the ultimate Queen Bee, ruling the school with an iron fist and at the same time ironing out her college application until it's perfect.

_And Kol_? He barely graduated high school, skipping so many classes to smoke pot with the burn outs under the bleachers. He doesn't even have any 'fond' memories of his time there because he always high. He'd been fucking hangover during the SATs and no Ivy League school wanted to accept a crack head with no ambitions besides playing Halo.

The only real reason he's accepted into the community college is because his mom pulled some strings. Mikael had been so angry with his SATs scores that he threatened to disown him but Esther must've calmed him down because the next day, he scheduled an interview for him with the Dean of the college.

He doesn't remember the interview either. He was probably high at the time.

* * *

Jeremy is his best friend and only friend if he's to be honest. The boy lost his entire family, his parents and sister, in a tragic accident just before his freshman year of college. That's how they met, smoking rolls under the bleachers and sharing philosophical ideas only someone high would understand. Jeremy had been going down a downward spiral of teenagers whose deaths were broadcasted on TV and glamorized for media when he met his now girlfriend, Anna.

And then like a romance novel cliché, she changed him for the better and now they're so happy, Kol wants to brush his teeth every time he's near them.

But he does like Anna. She's a spitfire and kind of hot (but he'd never admit that to Jeremy) and she didn't dare try to preach to Kol about getting clean and focusing on his future. She's laidback and cool and gets his sense of humor, stopping Jeremy when he starts to get patronizing because he thinks Kol should let go of his 'phase' like he did.

Kol doesn't know whether he should tell Jeremy it wasn't a phase.

He's waiting at the bar, swallowing down some shots when Anna enters through the door and looks panicked as she starts looking around for something or someone. She looks like she's about to cry when she spots him, practically running to get to him. "Have you seen or heard from Jeremy?"

He blinks. "No."

She starts hyperventilating and talking to herself. "Calm down. He's probably just in the library, studying and his phone died, that's why he's not answering and… and…"

She looks back at Kol and starts babbling. "Was he supposed to meet you here? When was the last time he called? I've been trying to contact him for hours and he's not picking up, I called his aunt and she says he didn't go home. I called his other friends and they know nothing. Oh God, Kol, what if something bad happened to him? Oh my God, that can't happen! Oh God, Oh God, Oh God-"

He shut her up with his hand on her mouth. "Calm down. I'm sure he's fine. There's probably an explanation for everything. You know, Jer, he's not one to make you worry."

He drops his hand and she lets out a breath. "You're right. He's probably planning a surprise for tomorrow. It's anniversary, you know?"

He didn't or maybe he did, he's not good with dates.

"And he's probably planning something sweet and unexpected because he likes making me happy." She smiled though it looked a bit manic and he slowly started to back away. "I'm gonna go check his dorm again, maybe he went out for a walk and now he's back!"

And then she was off.

"Yeah, you do that." Kol said to thin air before shaking his head and going back to his drink.

Jeremy never showed and an hour later, Anna called again. Jeremy was still missing.

* * *

He stumbles out the bar, minutes before last call and he's swaying but not as badly as some days where usually the bartender calls one of his siblings and it's usually Finn or Nik who come to collect him.

Finn doesn't say anything to him as he drives him to his dorm, helping him up the stairs and unto his bed and making sure there was water and aspirin nearby when he woke up. Which was better than Nik's nagging about his irresponsibility and instead of his bed, he ended up on the couch with the curtains parted so he woke up with sun in his eyes, making the hangover worse.

He isn't that drunk though but knows better than to try driving so he leaves his car at the parking lot and wobbles the way to his dorm. He's near his dorms when he smells a pungent rusty smell like melted copper pennies and acid mixed together and hears sobbing, loud wailing more like it.

A part of him tells him _Back away, fucker_ and another part goes _Hm, I wonder what that is?_

Guess which part he listens to.

The alcohol in his system makes him brave and he follows the direction of the smell and noise until he knows he's near enough and the smell is overwhelming his nostrils. What he saw made him stop and balk.

There, behind the row of small trees was a girl, a teenage girl, probably Rebekah's age, crouched on the ground and sobbing into her palms. She's covered in blood, all in her messy blonde hair, her mouth, her neck and her clothes. And there's a bloodied corpse by her.

Horror really sets in when he recognizes the shirt the corpse has on. It has _How Black Is Your Sabbath_ printed on and he can make it out despite the blood. He'd given that shirt to Jeremy three years ago.

He's shocked dumb and he stands there, not moving, for what seems an eternity before the girl looks up, all bloody and still beautiful ever with running mascara giving her panda eyes and a bloody mouth, _Jeremy's blood_, his best friend's blood.

She finally notices him and looks up with watery eyes, agony and regret in them and she instantly sobs out. "I'm sorry…I didn't mean to! I lost control….he was trying to help me- I was hungry and I panicked –and Oh my God, I'm so, so sorry!"

Maybe this is a dream, a nightmare and in the morning he'll get a call from Jeremy, who isn't dead, telling him about his anniversary surprise for Anna and Kol will roll his eyes at the sappiness but listen anyway.

But that would never happen.

Because oh God, Jeremy's dead,

And cold clarity sets into his befuddled brain when he realizes, this girl, this…this creature, whatever she is, might just kill him as well if she decides he's worth eating too and then there would be two bodies to be found in the morning.

He turns tail and runs.

She's fast, very fast, too fast because he's yards away before she's in front of him, stopping him from going anywhere with tiny, blood-splattered hands that are so strong, unnaturally strong.

"What the _fuck _are you?"

He continues to struggle and she lets out a growl when he tugs on her hair, distracting her enough so he can run again. But shit, she runs him down like a fox catches a rabbit and he's face aches from colliding on the ground and he can taste blood and dirt on his lips.

"Calm down!" The girl (monster) shouts. "I'm not going to hurt you!"

He struggles underneath her, she's light but her hands are on his spine, strong and he feels that she could break the bones on his back if she tries.

"Of for fuck's sakes!" She turns him over and he's on his back, staring into eyes of ice blue and suddenly his brain melts and he relaxes completely.

He feels like he's on a cloud, higher than any drug has ever brought him and he wants to stay in this mind-numbing bliss forever.

Her words are slow as she commands him. "You will do exactly as I say."

He nods, agreeing completely because why not? She's right, she's always right.

"You won't tell anyone about what you saw, right? You didn't see anything. It never happened, right?"

He nods again.

She smiles in relief. "Good. Now, do you live nearby?"

* * *

He takes her to his dorm and he doesn't have a roommate and everyone's asleep in their beds so no one would see him bringing a girl who looked like an extra in a horror movie into his dorm. He lies down on the couch, not knowing what to do as the girl cleans herself up in his bathroom.

She emerges a while later, her hair wet, her face clean of blood and the smeared make up all gone. She's quite fetching really, all blue baby doll eyes, fair skin and rosy cheeks. She looks innocent, harmless. And yet, she killed Jeremy right? Wasn't she just a monster with a deceitful face?

He frowns to himself as he fights with that calm seductive voice in his head, telling him otherwise. _But she didn't mean to. It's not her fault. Not her fault. Not. Her. Fault._

And it was right, wasn't it?

_It wasn't her fault._

She's not wearing her jacket anymore but her black blouse is still bloody and her jeans are ripped so he gets up and digs through his drawer for a shirt and some clean boxers. He hands them to her and she smiles shyly at him in gratitude.

He nearly balks when she takes her clothes off, stripping down to her lace bra and panties and he can see so much of that perfect, fair skin. Like porcelain and he wants to touch and feel if she's cold or warm and see if there are any imperfections.

Then just as quickly his glimpse of her is over as she puts on his clothes and smiles hesitantly up at him like she just didn't strip in front of him without a care in the world. "I'm rather tired. Can I stay here tonight?"

He immediately nods. ":Of course. Sure."

She smiles again, more brightly and she goes to the bed and crawls under the sheets. He moves to go get a blanket and pillow for the couch but she asks, "Aren't you coming?"

He pauses and then stares at her.

She smiles invitingly and coaxes him with a tilt of her head. "There's enough room."

Not really, it was a single bed and it barely fit him, let alone the two of them but he complies and crawls in with her. She drapes herself over him like he's a human plush toy and sighs into his shirt, rubbing her cheek into the cotton before drifting off to sleep.

He rests his head on her crown and then asks one dangerous thought, _what am I doing?_

And then he follows her into oblivion.

* * *

He's woken up by Rebekah's voice as she enters his dorm.

"Kol! You're late for the brunch Dad is hosting today! I _cannot _believe you're sleeping in again! What the hell have you been – _Oh_"

He opens an eye and squints up at Rebekah who's at the foot of the bed, staring down at him with a disapproving look. He follows her to where her gaze is directed and looks down to see the girl from last night, wrapped in his arms and she looked quite content in her sleep. How she slept through Bekah's shrieking was rather interesting though.

He looks up at Rebekah who gave him a look and down at the girl again before he jumps out of bed, causing the girl to awaken from his sudden movements. With wide eyes he looks back and forth between his sister and strange girl on the bed, realization dawning with how it looked like earlier.

"I-It isn't what it looks like!" He stammers in protest.

Rebekah rolls her eyes and starts walking towards the door. "Whatever. I'll be ready in my car, be down at fifteen and take the tramp with you if you want. It's not like you can disappoint our parents anymore anyway."

He bows his head and then looks back at the girl on his bed, her blue eyes wide and he tried to grin but it came out more of grimace. "You want brunch?"

* * *

The annual brunch hosted by Mikael is the social event for anyone who's anyone in town, mostly Founding families though and the Mikaelsons being the earliest settlers in the area were regarded very highly and not just that, but they are rich and influential and nobody forgets it.

Nobody forgets the black sheep of the family either, always such an embarrassment to them when he has to appear in social events where people would whisper about him behind his back and always comparing him to his siblings who are better at everything.

This time though, they are more curious about the pretty blonde he has on his arm. They've never seen her around town before so she must be new, definitely not from the Founding families so she really is a commodity among them. Just who is the girl?

Kol sighs to himself as he notices the numerous curious stares people are giving him and his 'date'. She looks nervous with all the attention and he quickly ushers her towards an empty table where they aren't forced to talk to anyone.

His mom stops him before they can reach the table though. Greeting him with a "Darling!" before peppering him kisses on his cheeks and he winces and tries to wipe her lipstick away as she starts to comment on his messy hair and tries to fix it.

Rebekah really did mean just fifteen minutes and that's barely enough to wash his face, brush his teeth, put on a suit and dress shoes and he's dragging the blonde girl out of the door before he realizes she's still clad in his faded Ramones t-shirt and boxers.

They're already downstairs and a door away from the parking lot where Rebekah honks in her car for them to hurry up and thankfully Rebekah had some spare clothes and shoes that were appropriate for the brunch so Caroline changed in the back of the car, Kol keeping his eyes resolutely forward in the passenger seat.

Caroline barely combed her hair when they arrived at the Mikaelson mansion. She looked a little disheveled, hair slightly out of control with no product or styling in it, no makeup, no perfume, no jewelry but she still managed to look stunning, radiant in her simplicity.

Esther finally notices Caroline and eyes her up in down, inspecting her. "And you must be…?"

Kol has never brought home a girl before, much less to any affair where they were scrutinized. Kol prefers to be dateless than to go to all the trouble so him bringing a date with him now after so many years must be making his mom's mind start calculating about the girl on all her details and if she is 'worthy' enough for her son.

Kol opens his mouth to introduce his companion but suddenly remembers he doesn't know her name, much less anything else except the fact she feeds on human blood.

"Caroline Forbes!" The blonde girl shakes his mom's hand and smiles up at her charmingly, disarmingly and Esther melts like butter in an El Nino.

"Forbes? Are you related to the town's Forbes by any chance?"

"Distantly," Caroline answered. "I'm here in town visiting them actually."

The idle chit-chat continues and by the time they're done, Esther is sold. She shoots her son an approving look as she goes away to mingle with her peers.

Kol can only stare at Caroline in awe. She somehow managed to gain his mother's approval at first meeting which was something because Esther Mikaelson is not so easily taken with anyone. She was tough cookies and chose who or who should not be in her life. So for her to be taken with some mysterious blonde he just brought along is rather impressive.

He sits down beside her at their table and gives her a smile.

* * *

After brunch, which went on for so long, it's almost dark, they went back to his dorm and Kol collapsed on the couch as Caroline stood by the doorway, leaning on the door and looking forlorn. He looks up from the couch and narrows his eyes at her as his brain tried to figure her out.

"Can I ask you something?"

She nods and slides off the door, going to the couch and pushing him until he's sitting up and there's room for her to sit down. She slips off Rebekah's flesh-colored heels and he's distracted by creamy soft legs.

"What's your question?" She asks and he wakes from his stupor.

"Um, yeah." He clears his throat. "What are you?"

She responds instantly, no hesitance. "I'm a vampire."

He blinks.

"As in Twilight?"

She scoffs. "_No_, like Anne Rice and Bram Stoker, not those glittering faeries Meyer likes to pass off as vampires."

"But you just walked into the sunlight earlier."

She waved her right hand on his face. "I have a special ring."

"Do you transform into a bat?"

She laughs. "No."

"Holy water? Crucifixes?"

"Just the same effect they have on you."

He contemplates his last question before continuing. "And blood?"

Her smile drops and her eyes close like fluttering butterfly wings. "That part's true but I swear I'm not a killer! Yesterday rarely happens, I'm usually in control and I usually have a stash of blood bags from suppliers but he was taking too long and I was so hungry and he- he…" She lets out a shuddering breath and closes her eyes. "I don't want to hurt anyone. I've been trying to be good and I just keep losing it."

She looks down at her hands, the ends still slightly pinkish from the blood she wasn't able to get out and he finds no bile rising in his throat, no disgust, no anger, just pity. And he takes her hand in his and squeezes till her eyes open and she's looking at him like he's someone special, someone good.

And he likes that.

* * *

They crawl into bed that night again and they don't say anything, just listening to the soft rhythm of breaths, her ear just above his heartbeat and he's wrapped warm in a cocoon of soft, beautiful girl and he doesn't think he wants to get out.

She looks up at him at the same time he looks down at her and their eyes lock, brown with blue and he's lost, drowning because he's holding his breath, afraid to even breath cause he might ruin the moment.

She tilts her head up invitingly and he reaches down, his lips are hesitant on hers which was different with him because usually sex like drugs and booze is a haze, lots of movement just to climax and doze off with the euphoria.

Like most things, it's a distraction but with this girl he's just met. This mysterious charming girl, he wants to take his time and so he lets her be on top, her lips gaining more confidence as the kiss deepens and lengthens. She straddles him with her slim thighs and his hands slide up them and into his short, another one she borrowed and he pulls it up and up until she can pull it over her head.

Her lips are back on his and she worn nothing underneath so he can feel all the perfect porcelain skin he's been wanting to touch ever since last night and he explores and takes and gives until she's literally ripping his clothes off, the material giving away to her inhuman strength.

She giggles as she looks down at him, biting her lips and her eyes seductive as she guides his length inside of her. And then he can't think anymore as she's bouncing on top of him, seeking her pleasure along with his own.

And this may have gone for seven minutes, maybe even seven years but all he knows is that wow, this was brilliant and sublime and he will never forget the way she cried out when she reached that peak, forcing him to take his as well.

They lay panting after it's done. Their skin sticky with sweat and she hums a song into his ear, her fingers in his dark hair before he drifts to sleep.

* * *

She wakes him up at dawn, her hands caressing and firm at the same time. And he opens his eyes drowsily as she smiles down at him with affection, fingers going through his hair and lips placing a chaste kiss on his chapped lips and she pulls away before he can respond.

She looks him in the eye, all blue, blue eyes and her voice has that familiar commanding tone. "You're free."

He closes his eyes for a second, as his head clears, that seductive, calm voice disappearing from his mind and replaced by human clarity. Thoughts and emotions come forth, reminding him of what he's being doing with who he's doing it with and bile rises in his throat.

_Monster, monster, monster!_ He shouts in his head but his mouth refuses to open, his jaw clenched. And he wants to hurt this beautiful monster for taking away his will and forcing him to not care what she was. And he usually did not care about anything but now he does. _He cares_.

And he opens his eyes, ready to tell her off for playing with his head but she's already gone.

* * *

Anna comes into his room at noon, a complete mess as she sobs into his shirt.

"Jeremy's dead…" She repeats over and over.

And he clenches every muscle in his body that aches with anger, hate and betrayal.

He wants revenge.

* * *

A stake comes into his mail slot a few days later with a note, short and simple in flowery cursive handwriting.

_Come and find me._


	6. kerosene and desire

**The person who requested asked for something light but you guys know that dark is my forte. So, sorry but I'm not sorry.**

**Feb 10th was my birthday and I'm officially nineteen now. I celebrated last Friday by watching Warm Bodies with my best friend. It's amazing, guys, I loved the whole thing. My only qualm was that I could make out Teresa Palmer's Aussie accent sometimes and as most YA stories the romance was a bit rushed but besides from that, it was cool. I bought the Warm Bodies book too and I'm enjoying it so far. Lastly, I've stopped watching TVD, I've had enough of the Julie Plec show.**

**"Caroline is a vampire hunter, Kol is an original vampire." -butterflymm19**

* * *

She smells like oranges, sandalwood and sweat.

Kol idly ponders this as he watches the female hunter fight with his vampire minions. She's dressed in a loose mossy green jacket, grey singlet, dark jeans and combat boots – not really that appealing to his tastes but there's this certain _vibrancy_ to her with the way she shot wooden bullets at his minions, shoved stakes into their chests and sprayed them with vervain.

She's fearless, ruthless and merciless as she killed without regret or even taking a breath. It's rather impressive since it's six against one but she holds her own, already eliminating half. A vampire grabs her from behind and she elbows him in the gut, backhanding him in the face before turning around and roundhouse kicking him to the ground, then she stakes him. Then she throws a vervain grenade to the remaining two vampires immobilizing them enough for her to stake them and then it's all over.

That has to be some kind of record and he glances at his watch to check: _fifteen minutes_. That has to be the fastest kill he's ever witnessed, the girl had talent and she only looks to be a teenager, barely eighteen even but there was a cold frigidness to her eyes as she stares up at him from on top of the rooftop and beckons him with a slim finger.

He hasn't met a girl before, a _human _girl albeit a hunter who could dare to challenge him, an Original vampire, one of the oldest in the world, one of the most feared just below Nik who was known to witches as the ultimate abomination against nature, hybrid that he was.

He feels something stirring inside him as he glares down at the pretty blonde hunter. Her blue eyes gleaming almost translucent in the moonlight, cocky smirk on her pouty lips as she tightened her now sweaty ponytail. He wants to kill her but at the same time he doesn't because he's _intrigued_. And very few things interest him anymore after a thousand years of living.

He continues to stare at the insolent little hunter before she grabs her shotgun of the floor and aims It up at him, it's too high up to reach but he understands this was all bravado. "You coming down, Kol-pie?"

What did she just call him?

She grins and puts her gun done to her side, eyes gleaming mockingly as he_ balks _at her. "Come now, Kolicious, I don't have all night!"

He snaps out of her shock and in a second he's gone from the rooftop and down at the ground, behind her, so close he can smell her intoxicating scent even more to a point he wants to know if she tastes as she smells. Ugh, snap out of it, man.

She turns around slowly and looks up at him, eyes narrowed but doesn't take a step back. Her hand creeps to the inside of her jacket where there are more stakes but he just rolls his eyes and grabs her wrist, his other one taking the shotgun and throwing it many feet away. Then he rips off her jacket until it's in slivers, stakes, wooden bullets, a handheld gun and a _fucking dagger_ (where did she get that?) fall to the ground and he turns her around, her back pressed closely to his and his assaulted by how warm she is.

Her breath hitches when he sniffs her neck, wanting to taste her sweat and bite into the porcelain flesh and feast on her rich, red blood. His fangs lengthen and he tries to dig his teeth into the fleshy column before a knife is shoved into his gut and he lets her go, grunting as he takes out the fucking knife she had hidden in her boot.

"That wasn't nice." He growls as he drops the knife to the ground.

"What do you think this is my first day?" She quips before she lunges at him, landing a few blows on his face and torso and _fuck!_ even his crotch before he finally has enough and disables her by grabbing her wrist and crushing the bone in muscle with one squeeze.

She yelps as she falls to the ground, cradling her wrist, eyes watering and he wants to kick her in the gut. Stupid bitch. Instead he grabs her by the leg, dragging her towards him and he crouches down until he can see all the bruises and cuts on her skin.

She smells divine, that unique scent of oranges and sandalwood makes him want to bottle it up forever and breath it in like a fine perfume.

"You know, kid, you've got guts." He said. "Not many people are brave enough to go against an Original vampire, let alone me. You're just lucky it's not Nik or Bekah, they'd really make you suffer for even being stupid enough to try."

She glares at him through wet lashes and shudders and frowns when his fingers tuck the shorter loose strands of blonde hair behind her ear then caress her jaw before finally tugging on her injured wrist making her whimper in pain. He inspects what he's done for a minute, poking it even and making her cry out before he tsks.

"That will take weeks to heal the human way since you hunters are so against vampire blood. Poor you." He shakes his head in faux-sympathy, making her huff and he smirks when she tries to stand up.

Ah, hunters, always are fighting till the bitter end.

His hand goes to her knee and her eyes widen before the bone snaps with a pop and she gasps, sobbing when the white hot heat takes over. He watches her writhe on the dirt for a minute, cocking his head to the side as he observed her pain. He remembers the words he's been called over the centuries by supernatural being sand humans alike –_ cruel, heartless, sadist, demon, __**monster**_. All labels anyway, just on the surface of touching just how dark and twisted he really was.

Nik and Rebekah maybe spiteful and vindictive but he's the one that made hundreds of witches and vampires bow to the knee when he and his siblings started their takeover of North America, he took New Orleans first since it's his favorite town while the others took on the bigger cities like L.A., New York, Washington, Chicago – it a few years but now the Northern Kingdom was theirs to rule. Soon, they'd take on the rest of the world and that was just the start, the start of a new empire, one ruled by the most vicious and relentless predators the world has ever seen.

Hunters started their rebellion, of course. Groups of guerilla troops kept cutting down their infinitely larger numbers by day and night, blood always being spilled, vampire and hunter alike, some old and some young or even younger than the hunter on the ground.

"What's your name?" He asks but she's panting from the agony of her broken bones and just keeps her eyes close, tear tracks on her pale cheeks.

He sighs before tugging off the dog tags on her neck until the chain broke and read the inscription: _C. Forbes._

Forbes?

"Wait, are you Bill Forbes' daughter?"

Her jaw is clenched trying not to scream from the pain but nods quickly.

Oh, so she wasn't just any newbie hunter, trying to take on the big baddies. She was the daughter of the leader of the hunters, an ultimate haul really if he decides to play with this new information with great care. Bill Forbes has been a thorn on their side for a while now, they were able to eliminate his right hand man, Alaric Saltzman a month ago but it still hasn't stopped the rebels from fighting on. Humans were always going on no matter how hopeless it was.

It was time to snuff out that bloody light in their spirits and let them know who was boss around here.

He grins down at the sobbing girl before biting into his wrist. Her eyes widen in realization and misery before he forces her to swallow his blood, shaking her head and trying to push him away but he's relentless and only pulls away when he sure she's had enough. She tries to spit out the blood but it's too late, her lips bloody as he looks down at her and whispers,

"Sweetheart, give your dad a message for me – _Checkmate_."

He snaps her neck.


	7. and my blood is all i see

**Happy belated valentine's day! How was the day of hearts for you guys? I ended up celebrating it twice actually. With my friends watching Crazy, Stupid, Love and eating pizza in my room and then eating out with my mom. That's right. I am forever boyfriend-less. But I did realize that I've always had a thing for handsome, charming psychopaths in fiction and thought I better not get a boyfriend what if I end up dating a real psychopath? Haha.**

**Also, I'm coming down with something and I don't get sick very easily so when I do I get really pissed off and it's hellish for me. Yes, I get upset over a freaking cold. **

**Anyway, here's the prompt. This is set after 1x22 after the car accident and Kol kidnaps Caroline from the hospital, feeds her his blood and pretty much a long drawn out transition happens.**

**"The world was on fire and no one could save me but you." -allie**

* * *

Caroline gasps as she awakens, sitting up as _sweet, glorious air_ finally enters her laughs. She feels cold all over and her heart is barely beating into her chest, faint and slow but still there. She blinks and winces as her eyesight is assaulted by sunlight, so fucking bright and noise –cars, people, fucking noise– assaults her ears. Then there's the scent of aftershaves, perfumes, dirt, gravel, gas, smoke, sex and so many others she can't distinguish and for a moment she's just a bundle of sensation as she's overcome by all the sensations.

"Easy there, sweetheart." An unfamiliar voice greets her, cutting into the hellish symphony of sounds.

And she realizes why the hospital bed feels slicker, it's because it's the backseat of a car, leather seats that slide against her clammy skin and she's wondering _what the fuck_ before dark eyes of a strange boy greet her from the rearview mirror.

"Just let me go," She whines in misery as the boy –Kol, he says his name is– drags her into a posh hotel.

The hotel clerk sees her, hair messy and dressed in a hospital gown, her feet bare with Kol's arm around her and looks alarmed.

Kol stops in front of the man and stares him down for a moment before the hotel clerk relaxes and hands over a key to him.

_Compulsion_. She slowly remembers from the times Damon had done that to her, his blue eyes would suddenly soften, his pupils dilated and suddenly her thought would melt and she's a puppet to his ministrations again.

Fucking hell.

Kol drags her to the elevator and she feels nausea in her belly and her skin feels on fire, everything fucking burns and when will the pain stop?

_Transitioning_ was what Kol called it. She was transitioning into a vampire and only a few memories of her time with crazy vampire Damon resurface and she just remembers blood and sharp teeth and monstrous eyes.

She groans when her insides give a angry lurch again as if protesting to the changes. Everything about her feels sensitive, every sensation heightened and she wonders for a minute _why the fuck does so many people want to be vampires? _Because goddamn it, this _hurts _and she just wants to _fucking die_.

They exit the elevator and her knees give out just when they reach their door. Kol doesn't even blink and picks her up with one arm, holding her to his side like she weighed nothing and opens the door with his free hand. He dumps her on the bed, not rough but not gentle either and she miserably crawls into a ball and sobs as the fucking tremors continue.

_When will this stop? _

_Soon, sweetheart._

He's sitting on the bed beside her now, pressing a wet towel on her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth, down to her neck before repeating. The cold relaxes her overly feverish skin and she closes her eyes as consciousness slips away from her.

She wakes at dark but her vision is even better than before and she can see every miniscule detail in the room despite the lack of lighting from the crack on the wall beside the replica Goya painting to the tiny stars outside she can see from the window.

Kol is lying beside her, eyes closed but she knew he wasn't asleep from his breathing. He opens his eyes when she looks up at him in wonder, her blue eyes wide when he smirks down and his fingers skim over her full lips.

"You're almost done," He says. "And this is the best part."

She only blinks as he moves so fast he's on top of her and she giggles for no reason and everything feels _wonderful, amazing and awesome_ and she can't stop laughing.

Kol raises an eyebrow, his lips quirking at her like she's something fascinating and then she's enraptured, taken over by the sheer beauty of this vampire boy.

He's all dark and light coloring, he's cream and onyx and his lips look so soft, his eyes so dark and warm and she wants to touch him. Her fingers tangle into his soft, soft hair and he sighs and closes his eyes, purring lightly like a kitten.

She giggles again and he opens his dark eyes again, looking down at her like she's really amusing. "This stage is all about sensation, everything is heightened."

His lips kiss her neck lightly like butterfly wings but she feels it all the way to her core and she gasps, her hands going to his back, pressing him tighter into her and she's tugging on his sweater, wanting to feel his skin against hers.

"Sex at this stage is absolutely _fantastic_,"

His lips make a trailer from her collarbone then up to her neck and towards her ear, nipping lightly and she whimpers. "Please."

He smirks in triumph against her skin and he's ripping her hospital gown into tiny slivers, tossing them away like confetti and she arches against his hands as one cups her breast, her nipples already pebbling, the other slips under her panties to tease her core. He strokes once, twice and _oh!_

She giggles as she's wrecked with thunderous tremors and Kol chuckles against her skin. He rests his forehead against hers and all she can see is chocolate brown. "Just the first of many, sweetheart," Then his lips stifle her giggles.

She awakes at dawn, alone in her bed. Not that she's surprised or anything but she does look around for any sign of the vampire boy. She expects to be sore after night they spent exhausting and exploring every sensation she was sure she was going to lose her mind before it was all over but there's nothing.

_Hmm, odd._

She turns her head when Kol enters, a bellboy following behind with a dazed look in the young man's eyes and Kol grins at her as he approaches, leaning down to peck her lightly before motioning for the bellboy to come over.

The bellboy sits down beside Caroline on the bed and Kol without warning bites into the boy's neck, leaving his lips bloody and he grins back at Caroline. "Have a taste, sweetheart."

She doesn't think twice before she's biting into the mortal boy's neck with tiny kitten teeth too small to really do much damage but the wound Kol made makes feeding easier and she's swallowing the blood until the body in her hands goes limp and falls down to the rug with a soft thud.

She licks her lips to get more of the taste, even as a small part of her sanity starts to creep in and say _Caroline, stop._

And Kol quirks his head to the side as if able to read her thoughts.

_Caroline, stop, you're not a monster._

_But you are._

She blinks up at him and grins, face back to that onyx and cream perfection but mouth still bloody and red. "You can read my mind?"

He shrugs as if that's an answer and pushes her down lightly, climbing on top of her but he doesn't kiss her, eyes just playfully studying her like he's a cat and she's the mouse he's captured and is just playing with at the moment. Anytime now though he's going to eat her, anytime now.

_Caroline, stop, you're not a monster. _

"Oh but you are," He smirks. "Or at least, you will be."


	8. the one with the prettiest of views

**So I have a new boyfriend. He's called Kleenex. I am officially sick but I'm not feverish so I can still write and stuff even when my head feels like it's been stuffed with cotton.**

**I don't think I did this prompt right. But whatev, I'm also good at crack it seems. Can't claim any credit for some of Kol's revelations in this story, I shamelessly stole them from Tyrion's in GoT.**

**"Are you in touch with all of your darkest fantasies? Have you created a life for yourself where you can experience them? I have. I am fucking crazy.  
But I am free." -redscarbaby**

* * *

There isn't really a step-by-step guide for vampire teen girls on the run. And if there is any of such thing made she can really use one right now.

Panicking, scared and heartbroken over the loss of the love of her life, Caroline is barely able to grab some clothes and knick knacks she can't bear to leave without.

Her mom hands her all the money she has stored around the house with her which is barely even three hundred dollars but what the hell, it's all she has and Caroline exchanges a tearful goodbye with her mom before she's driving away in her car and is out of Mystic Falls within half an hour.

She constantly looks back behind her to see if anyone is following, not turning the radio on in since she needs her superior hearing for any danger that's just lurking, ready to strike. She reaches the next town and the next and just keeps driving on until she's running low on gas. She stops at the nearest gas station and while her car's being filled up, she goes inside the convenience store, buys some hair dye and junk food and then she's back in her car and driving off into the night again.

* * *

Caroline arrives in Washington and the first thing she does is sell her car. She's barely had any sleep, her eyes blood shot and she's barely had any blood in two days but she knows better than to disregard her mom's advice on how to be inconspicuous so she sucks it up and replaces her car, the one her dad bought her for her seventeenth birthday, with a second hand Volkswagen that looks twice as old as her. It's pale yellow but she loves it instantly.

She has lunch in a diner, keeping her head low and wearing a hoodie to hide her hair and face before she's on the road again. She stops at Baltimore for gas, spends the night at a motel where she dies her hair blood red and then she's in New York, the city that never sleeps.

* * *

She goes to the address her mom wrote down for her and meets a Hispanic fellow who asks for her the details he needs for her fake I.D. and papers, then he takes her picture against the crème white wall and then in an hour, she's officially a different person. She pays him the money required then compels every single person that saw her to forget about her.

She's barely out the shady building when her fangs start to lengthen without her consent when her abdomen lurches in protest, in hunger. She practically jumps into her new (old) car and grabs one of the blood bags in the glove box. An empty blood bag is in her hands within a minute and she closes her eyes, trying to control herself. She's still hungry but damn it, she only has five left.

* * *

She spends two days at a motel in downtown Manhattan before she begins looking for an apartment to stay in. She has to take a job and yeah, she could just compel the landlord but she's the daughter of a Sheriff and a Forbes, it wouldn't be right and she can almost feel her dad's disapproving glare from wherever afterlife he's in.

She finds one in the lower West Side and it's small, just one bedroom and a shoebox bathroom and it's a far cry from that beautiful home she grew up in and although cold at times, is still hers. This feels like a downgrade but God, she's so exhausted she just drops her meager belongings on the floor and collapses on the mattress.

She's always been a bit of a snob, everyone had always said so. And she always did look down at menial labor but even if her I.D. said she was twenty-two, she didn't look a day over seventeen thanks to vampirism and the only people who would hire her were the coffee shop a few blocks from her flat or a couple of guys with a camera and leather outfits with a dark specific fetish.

Guess what she chooses.

Yeah, barista is not one of the jobs she and her parents considered for her to take but hell, she didn't even have time to graduate high school thanks to the supernatural phenomenon in her hometown so lattes and pastries it is.

It's been two months since she's settled into her new 'home', though 'home' feels a bit of an exaggeration for her new surroundings. 'Home' is Mystic Falls, her mom, Elena, Bonnie, Matt, Stefan, and…and Tyler. 'Home' is where she feels like she can be herself and not have to look over her shoulder every time she hears a noise when going home from work. 'Home' is not a crowded city of strangers whose names she doesn't know because she didn't go to school with them her whole life.

'Home' isn't this and she misses it every day.

Still, she has to move on. Forbes are survivors, leaders and they are strong. She won't let this break her and maybe someday, she can go back to her home. Maybe in a few years, a decade, a century – when everyone she knows will be dust and no one will even remember her name.

* * *

She's making an iced latte when she feels an electric charge, power dark as time alerts her survival instincts and she's bearing blunt teeth and turning towards the door to the intruder before she knows it.

There in all his Original fucking glory is Kol Mikaelson, Klaus' brother, the craziest Original brother maybe even more than his hybrid brother and oh God, he sees her and smirks as he realizes who she is.

She hands the lady her ice latte before she tries to look busy, hearing Kol's footsteps approach the counter as she looks anywhere but his direction. She has her back turned and is wiping the shiny clean black counter when her co-worker, Erin, whispers to her, gushing. "Cute guy at twelve o'clock."

Caroline tries to play cool, showing panic will show that she's afraid and that she even knows who the 'cute guy' is. "Really? Who?"

"That guy who just walked in. You know the one who's coming over here." Erin answers, nudging her with her shoulder. "You mind if I take this one?"

Caroline gestures carelessly but is secretly rejoicing. "Please."

Erin rushes to the counter and Kol's British lit confirms to her even more that it's him. How could she forget that voice? It's like one of those posh accents straight from _Downtown Abbey_. And he was alive during that time so it just makes it more authentic.

She needs an escape plan now. Her apartment was just four blocks from here, she can reach it in minutes at full vampire speed, collect her things, get in her car and be in Boston by the next day.

Her heart beating rapidly in her chest, she tries to keep her appearance composed and glides out from the counter, heading to where their manager. Cynthia is talking on the phone with someone. Cynthia gives her a smile when she approaches and nods when Caroline gives the time out gesture, signaling her break.

She goes to the backroom, discarding her apron and grabbing her coat before she's scurries out the backdoor. She gasps out in surprise when she sees Kol leaning on the brick wall outside, arms crossed over his chest and looking amused.

"You weren't trying to escape were you, sweetheart?" He says. "And I was so looking forward to catching up with you."

She tries to swallow her fear, letting her bravado take over. "I'm sorry, do I know you?"

He rolls his eyes. "It's gonna take a lot more than dying your hair to fool me, Forbes. Kindly drop the act. I know who you are and you know who I am so let's stop making arses of ourselves."

Her shoulders slump and she glares at him unhappily. "What do you want?"

"So testy," He tsks. "Maybe your new hair color does suit you, red like fire, red like blood – fucking feisty."

"What do you want, Ko- Mikaelson?"

"I don't know, _Caroline_, what do you think?"

"I don't know. You want to fuck with my head cause you're a sadistic son of a bitch?"

He grins, a fucking full out grin and it would be nice on any other boy but that manic gleam in his dark eyes made it look feral. "I knew there was reason Nik was so fascinated with you."

She scoffs, looking away from him. "Do you really need anything? Cause I have to get back in-"

"You were just about to high tail out of here two minutes ago."

'No, I wasn't." She denies. "I was planning on quitting anyways."

"No, you weren't."

She glares at him. "Yes, I was."

He nods. "Okay. Then looks go to another coffee shop then. Somewhere where the coffee doesn't taste like gravel."

"No. "

She suddenly feels more trapped than ever when she realizes there's really no escape here. He's faster and stronger than her. And he has a thousand years of living experience and honed skills. Trying to escape him would be futile unless she has a white oak stake and she doesn't really have one of those on retainer.

"I have to go back to work."

"Good." He pushes off the wall and walks towards her, making her take a step back but he brushes past her, his warm breath tickling her ear. "I didn't get my coffee yet."

* * *

Erin keeps checking out Kol from where he's seated by the table in the corner, sipping bitter black coffee as dark as his twisted, crazy soul and tinkering around with his phone. He's probably texting one of his equally as demented siblings and telling them that he found Vampire Barbie.

"Do you know him?" Erin asks, not taking her eyes off Kol. "He said he was a friend of yours though he called you a different name, Carol or something."

Caroline shrugs. "I must just look like someone he knows."

"Well, yeah but then he left when you did and you guys went back in together." Erin grins at her. "Is he an ex or something? Come on, Candice, you can tell me."

Caroline resists the urge to roll her eyes but puts her hands up in surrender. "Okay, you caught me. We do know each other."

Erin leans forward in interest. "Oh?"

"We used to sort of…date."

"Oh!"

"Yeah, but it was all physical, just crazy, hot sex all the time. He was really like into kinky stuff like _Fifty Shades of Grey_ stuff." She widens her eyes in exaggerated faux-innocence. "And I didn't think I would be into that but he was just so…so convincing and then before I knew it, I was doing all these kinky, _weird_, disturbing things with him and I just had to get out!"

Erin's looking at her like she's an alien with three heads – shocked, confused but very intrigued. "So what happened?"

"He wouldn't leave me alone after that. He just kept calling and coming over and _threatening me_ and that's why I had to leave town. I can't believe he found me again!" She shakes her head, mustering up a few crocodile tears. "I changed my name, dyed my hair, hoping he wouldn't find me but now he's here and-"

"Okay, okay." Erin stops her, rubbing up and down her arms in comfort before sending a determined look at Kol. 'I'll take care of this."

Caroline watches between her fingers as Erin asks – demands Kol to leave the coffee shop. When he refuses, Cynthia comes out and Erin explains the situation to her, prompting the entire coffee shop to shout and boo at him. Already making a scene, Kol glares at Caroline for a heated moment, stomping out of the shop.

Caroline grins to herself at her victory.

* * *

"I didn't know you were such the little actress, _Candice_."

Caroline rolls her eyes, not even bothering to turn around as she continues to walk home. Kol quickly follows her, catching up to her shorter stride without any effort.

"That was quite the performance. A little more theatrical than required though."

Her mouth quirks at the critique and she sends him a sidelong glance before answering. "Well, it did the job, didn't it?"

"Well, you successfully banned me from your work place but that doesn't mean you can keep me out of whatever hovel you're living in."

She smirks before she super speeds out of there, the sights and sounds a blurry canopy before she's outside her apartment building. She skips up the stairs in a little faster than human speed and is on her floor, fishing out her keys and into her apartment in a minute. She sighs in relief when she goes to open her fridge which is right beside her bed since the place is that small.

"I've seen rat holes bigger than this."

She loses her grip on the bottle of apple cider but Kol's there in a millisecond, catching it and placing it on the sink.

"How'd you get in here?"

"One of your neighbors let me in. I said I was visiting my girlfriend."

She scowls at the idea of even being his anything. How horrific would that be? What completely lunatic girl would want to date this borderline sociopath?

Sighing in defeat, surrendering herself to the fact she can't escape him save for staking herself, she scurries away from the Original, grabbing clothes from her tiny drawer and heading into the bathroom.

* * *

Freshly showered and dressed in her baggiest and ugliest clothes, Caroline comes out of the bathroom and sees Kol sitting on her mattress, flipping through channels on her miniscule TV. She scowls at the sight of him. "You're still here?"

He looks up at her and smirks. "You never said I have to leave."

"You need to leave."

He ignores her as if she's never spoken and picks up something on the bed beside him – _her freaking wallet_ from her bag and takes out her driver's license. "Candice Accola? Candy Accola. Accola Dracula. _Candy Dracula_. Cute. Can't escape who you are can you, Forbes?"

She narrows her eyes at him, crossing her arms over her chest. "Why? Are your aliases any better?"

He takes something out of his coat pocket and throws it at her. She catches it with ease and opens the booklet which turns out to be a passport. "Nathaniel Buzolic? _Buzolic_? What's that like from some sort of non-descript European country?"

"Croatia, actually. I've always had a fondness for that country."

She blinks at this new information and throws the passport back at him. Not in the mood to deal with his quirks, she goes back to towel-drying her hair. She glances at Kol who's eyeing her like the way Jeremy used to stare at the dead bird he found in the yard when he was six and then proceeds to dissect it. She shudders and looks away.

"It's Friday, you know." He says, not letting her ignore him. "Is this how you spend your Friday nights? In your apartment like some anti-social loser, not even getting laid or going out for some O Neg?"

She makes a non-committal noise and sits down beside him on the bed since there really is no room for a couch so it's that or the floor even if sitting beside him feels like a betrayal.

"Come on, Forbes, even _Finn_ was more entertaining than this. Yeah, he could be a drag with his unrelenting self-loathing and constant sucking up to our mother but once you get the mead into him, he wasn't so bad."

She stares at him.

"What? You don't believe him? Let me tell you a story of when we were at English court during Henry VIII's reign, he just married that Anne Boleyn bird and-"

"And I'm sure it was a great time but I'm tired and I'd really want to catch up on some rest so if you'd kindly leave-"

"Let's go out."

She balks at him. "What?"

"Let's go to some bar and get pissed. There's this rather shitty one nearby but they except anyone there so you'd have no trouble blending in with the riff raff."

She narrows her eyes at him. "No. Go by yourself."

He pouts like a young boy denied of that one special Christmas present he wants. "But it's no fun alone!"

"It's not my fault you don't have any friends!"

* * *

This is probably the worst day of Caroline's life. Well, second worst after the werewolves kidnapped and tortured. Okay, third after her dad tried to 'fix' her vampire nature.

Fine, it's in the top ten at least.

She sulks as they enter the 'rather shitty' bar Kol drags her into. She barely had time to do her hair and makeup, only able to brush her hair, apply some lip gloss and get into the black dress and ankle boots before Kol got impatient, grabbed her by her wrist and vamp sped them away.

Not like anyone really cares how she looks anyway, the patrons mostly drunk college kids, desperate women in their thirties and middle aged perverts who keep eyeing her like she's veal. Kol walks like he's the King of England and goes right up to the bar ordering tequila shots and making her sit down beside him, three shots lined before him and three on hers.

"Let's play a game, _Candice_." He says. "One shot for every secret."

She looks at him like he's delusional. He probably is. "I'm not going to tell you my secrets."

He looks at her, eyes soft, almost _sincere_. "It doesn't have to involve your friends, Candice, I just want to know about you."

She stares at him disbelieving. "Why?"

"Cause I get a kick out of knowing things about my brother's girlfriend that he even he doesn't know."

"I'm not Klaus' girlfriend!" She protests.

"So you're Elijah's? Or don't tell me, _Finn's_?" He looks down at her with narrowed thoughtful eyes. "Now that I think about it, you do remind me a bit of Sage, hair and all. But he was daggered at the time…unless you gave him a hand job while he was-"

"Take a shot!"

She's blushing red as her hair now and just wants him to stop with that disturbing imagery. Daggered Originals are no better than corpses which meant he's implying she's into necrophilia or something close to it. But then again, she is _undead_ so maybe- Eww, just eww.

"Okay, I'll start." He smirks. "I give a secret and then you give one."

He reaches for a glass and swallows down his first shot, not even wincing as the alcohol goes down his throat. His eyes do close for a moment before they open again and he's staring into her eyes, that dark brown almost black searing into her very soul and for a moment she's mesmerized, reminding her of when Damon used to use compulsion on her. Wait, was he-

"I never hated my father."

She blinks as he continues his explanation, eyes unusually soft, lost in some memory.

"Even after everything he did to us, to me. He was still my father and...my-my first memory was of him. I was taking my first steps and he was smiling, so happy, _so proud of me_ and he lifted me into the air and it was…I felt…" He cleared his throat, snapping out of whatever trance he's previously in. "Your turn."

She takes the shot glass and swallows the amber liquid down, licking her lips as her throat burns. She tries to think of a secret, one of the few she keeps because she's such an open book and keeping secrets are hard for her but there are still a few, the few she's always been afraid to let others know, afraid of their judgment, the backlash so keeps it to herself.

But after Kol revealed his secret, it seems wrong not to reveal something equally as honest as her own.

She looks at him, expression wary. "You won't tell anyone, will you?"

"Who would I tell?"

"I don't know. Klaus, Rebekah, Elijah, some random vampire you know…"

He shrugs. "Does it matter that much, Forbes? I just told you something deeply personal, you can't back out now, it just makes you a coward."

She huffs. She is a Forbes and Forbes aren't cowards so despite his obvious manipulation, she tells him. "My first kiss wasn't a boy."

His eyes widened almost comically before that _dirty_, intrigued grin comes out. "Oh. Who was it?"

She bites her bottom lip. "Elena."

"Gilbert? _The Doppelganger_?" His expression is equal parts shock and glee. "Seriously?"

"We were thirteen and we don't have big sisters to give advice so I thought it'd be-"

"You suggested it?" He laughs - howls in delight and she just glares at him because ripping out his spleen would alarm the humans in the bar. He grins at her after he comes down a bit and reaches for another shot. "I change my mind. I _love_ this century."

* * *

Those three shots become six then nine and before she knows it, they've told each other the most intimate secrets about themselves.

"I once ejaculated into some turtle soup and I'm pretty sure my sister ate it…or I hope she did."

"I once had a sex dream about Alaric."

"One time when Nik was swimming in the lake, I stole his clothes and he had to go back to the village butt naked."

"I don't think I really loved Matt that much."

"I once loved a human girl."

She pauses and stares at him with wide eyes. "What?"

He looks down at the empty shot glasses on the bar counter, eyes lost in thought and she nudges him with an impatient finger. He makes a grunting noise.

"What do you mean by that? You mean you actually loved a-"

"Her name was Sam. She was seventeen, blonde hair, blue eyes, pretty."

She blinks at him, not able to comprehend this new information. But wait, he's an Original and they are always about vampire superiority and how humans are just food, prey. So how it's possible that he fell in love for a human girl, something he considers beneath him is staggering. "What happened?"

"Nik, he…he wanted to teach me a lesson …and I learned it."

There's a small silence, filled with unspoken words and thoughts and she can't take her eyes off him, just beginning to understand the enigma of one of the oldest vampires in the world. It was like he's a two-dimensional picture in her head that's slowly colored and is now becoming something more than just an idea.

And it's terrifying and overwhelming and she feels stupid and foolish for characterizing him as a one-note being without any layers. He's human, isn't he? Or at least he was, once upon a time.

He looks back at her and smiles wryly, trying to break the tension and gestures to her last shot. "Last one. Make it good, Forbes."

She takes the glass in her suddenly nimble fingers and gulps it down, never taking her eyes of Kol. He waits for her to speak and she does so with a sigh. "I don't hate you…or at least I don't anymore. Maybe I never did."

He scoffs. "That's no good. I already knew that!"

She gaps at him. "What do you mean?"

He smirks at her like she's dense. "I'm entirely too lovable and irresistible to be hated. Of course, you don't hate me."

Her earlier pity for him evaporates and she banters with him until the bar closes.

* * *

They're walking back to her apartment, her leaning heavily on him as he -surprise, surprise- has a higher alcohol tolerance than her and while she's completely wasted, he's just barely tipsy, supporting her with an arm on her waist and tugging her along when she trips.

"I had a fun night." She says, grinning happily up at him.

He rolls his eyes and smirks. "You're a happy drunk. I'm telling Nik that."

She giggles for some reason because she's at that place where everything Kol says is comedy gold. They make it to her apartment and he helps her up the stairs and up her floor, kicking her door open when he gets annoyed with her fumbling with the lock.

She laughs and titters towards her bed, landing face first, her vision clouded with a curtain of red when she looks up. Kol is standing by her bed, smiling even sort of nicely at her, no nefarious hints or anything and she grins up at him, giggling.

He leans down and she's mesmerized with dark brown again. "Thanks for the night, Candice."

"You're welcome, Nate."

"Now forget it."

And she does.


	9. i don't believe in fairytales

**10K+! **

**I am so tired. And it's so cheesy and fluffy and there's not a definite tone. Oh Poseidon, just kill me!**

**Virtual cookies if you get all the references. **

**Mermaid mythology is from _Aquamarine_ and _Mermaids (2003)_. **

**For the meaning of Caroline's nail colors check out mood ring color meanings on google  
**

**"You should do a story based off a fairy tale like the little mermaid, or something and switch it up" -HollisterandGames**

* * *

You want the Mermaid 401?

There are like these giant golden tablets with the history of the merfolk engraved on them, telling us all how we came into existence from the sea being created and all the creatures being made and then the first merman was born and then –

Oh God, I sound like Grandma Helen now, just droning on and on about the old days and stuff. Like I really even care much about how everything came to be in our world. It's simple really. There was the ocean, the first merman was born. Then the first mermaid. They banged. End of story.

There really is no need for flowery language or to praise the almighty Poseidon for creating our land of constant wetness and scaliness. We're dryness-deprived creatures and everything smells of fish. What's so cool about that?

The only time it gets exciting is when there's a party. Cause there is always a party here at Atlantica, there's always something to celebrate. The smallest, most mundane things are celebrated.

Grandma Helen turned another century older? YAY! Damon fathered another baby with another gullible mermaid? Woo-pee! Elena and Stefan are getting married? LET'S ALL DO THE MERFOLK VERSION OF GANGNAM-STYLE!

Okay, the last one sounds horrible. I really am happy for Elena and Stefan. They are my best friends and I'm happy that they're happy and they're going to start a family cause after all that's all going to be left of them when they die.

Our lives are all ran by magic.

We need to always be dryness-deprived because when we're dry, we get legs. Seriously, like human legs and we can pass for them and we can walk on land if we wanted to. But none of us want to because humans are jerks. Crazy, obsessive jerks who have wanted to capture us for centuries so they could put us into aquariums to stare at us and then cut us up when they get bored.

We've heard the warnings from the elders and we know better than to expose ourselves and be tortured that way. Also, none of us want to risk the others who the humans will want to look for as well. Secrecy is a necessity in our world, always has been.

Anyway, what was I saying?

Oh right, mermaids live a lot longer than humans, a few millennia before we become sea foam and then we're gone forever. The thing is, merfolk have no souls. Not in the demon kind of way humans like to describe us as but as in, there is no merfolk afterlife. There's just here and now and all that's left behind are the generations after us.

Alright, don't be so glum now, chums! There are some perks to being a mermaid even if there is no immortality or heaven for us. We have super strength and speed. And some of the girls are sirens which means they can pretty much get human boys to do whatever they want (not that that has much use since we don't go up to see those human boys). And of course, there's the birthright.

When you're born, you're given a birthright which is an object presented by your parents. It can be anything really. Damon has a silver triton that he can change the size of it at will, Bonnie has a magical mirror that lets her see anyone she wants, and Elena has a seashell that lets her talk to anyone she wants to reach.

Pretty cool, right? Wait, what's mine?

Oh, mine's a coral necklace. Pretty ugly actually and all it does is give me the ability to morph my appearance. I can look like anybody I want to be and sure, the necklace's ability sounds cool right? But the necklace doesn't really _disappear_ when I change appearance so anyone just needs to look down at that ugly accessory and know it's me so moot point.

I would rather have Bonnie's mirror or Damon's triton. Or just the triton, no one messes with you when you can stab them with a freaking magical triton.

Well, I guess it could be worse.

Stefan's birthright didn't even do anything. It was a pocket watch that his Dad found in a sunken ship and of course, it doesn't work underwater so it did _nothing_. But Stefan loved it. It was gold and there was an engraving in human language so we couldn't read it but Stefan could stare at the foreign words and try with all his might to gauge what they mean. He's weird like that.

So I've rambled long enough. What's the moral? Stay away from humans. At all costs.

* * *

Another day, another party.

What's the party, Caroline? Oh nothing, just my birthday. Why must I be so glum on my birthday? Well, it's just my eighteenth birthday. And mermaids live practically forever, remember? My Dad just turned one-hundred and fifty last month. So turning eighteen isn't really a milestone.

It just feels like another day to me. Another day, another thing to celebrate and I've been sick of these things since I was fourteen.

The same things always happen.

All the merfolk will gather in the great hall of the palace.

We will sit- ugh, _float _around.

My Dad, the King (yes, I'm the freaking princess get over it), will arrive fashionably late and will make a speech about how awesome we merfolk are, especially me cause it's my birthday, then he will sit down on his golden throne.

John will come in on his freaking seahorse, dramatic as always and starts conducting the entertainment. Nowadays, it's his new mermaid chorale, including Elena and Bonnie and guess who's the star singer? Yup, you guessed it, _me_.

I've been practicing _Mermaid in a Bottle_ and _Ship Me Baby One More Time_ for freaking weeks and I just can't wait to get it over with.

We'll finish performing, everyone will clap, especially my Dad then we will all float around a bit until high-tide and everyone will go home.

That's all that happens. Seriously.

A few hours before the party, all the girls in the chorale are getting ready, putting shells and starfishes in their hair and gushing about the cute merboys. Elena was talking with Stefan on her shellphone and Bonnie was watching Jeremy on her mirror (and it's not creepy at all, it's not) and it's so cute. All this cuteness made me sad though.

I mean, yeah, I'm happy for them. But where's my merguy? How come they all avoid me like freaking red tide? How come I don't have a Stefan or a Jeremy?

Grandma Helen tells me because I act like a human girl and not like a mermaid. You know, emotional and not like a cold fish like the other mermaids? And this is a very bad thing. I am the freaking princess and therefore I shouldn't act so…human. Cause we're not human and we – _I _shouldn't act like them.

I guess she's right. I have a duty to my lineage and that's to find a suitable merman and pop out a guppy or two and the royal family of Atlantica can live on. If only I could just stop…feeling. Was there an off button or something no one told me about? And how come they didn't tell me?

I glare at my reflection in the mirror for a minute before shaking my head and swam out of the dressing room, wanting to find someplace where I could be the freaking emotional freak I was and not be ousted for it.

I opt to just swim around the palace, passing by servants carrying all sorts of food for the party, kelp, seaweed, crabs, oysters, shrimps, fish – anything you can think of, we have it. The guards were standing less alert today, as they always were during feasts and chatted with one another, not minding me at all as I swam past them to exit the palace.

Seeing the coast was clear, I swam as fast as I could to get out of the open area and towards Deep End, the graveyard of sunken ships.

* * *

Deep End is generally avoided because One, humans love sunken ships, all the treasures hidden inside (most of which we already get before they can even get their scuba gear. What? We love shiny things!). Two, Dad thinks we shouldn't learn too much about humans since they are such crazy jerks. And three, sharks. The Great Whites particularly love to hang around the area and unless you want to be shark food, you better be extra careful.

Most of the loot in the ships has already been coveted but it never hurt to check for any forgotten things. The latest ship is from last year, it is a small one and I barely fit through the window but once in I swam about, trying to find something to take with me. It'd be awfully sad if I come back empty-handed.

I enter the lone room below deck and look around. Everything is deteriorating already but still I search under objects and looked into tight spaces, trying to find…something. I feel something behind the wooden 'closet' (what did Damon call it? Something to hold clothes and things in?) and my hand touches something so I use both hands to get it out and it turns out to be a box. Smooth ivory wood with swirls of pink and gold painted on it.

I open it and there's a small figurine inside, a girl standing on her tiptoes. Is she dancing? Is that how humans danced? It makes me wonder for a moment, a dark forbidden minute, what it would be like to dance with feet instead of swimming and floating around with my fins. Would I still be graceful despite gravity? How different would it feel?

Caroline, what the hell?

I close the box and shake my head. Sorry. Being emotional tended to make you delusional as well sometimes. I need to get back to the party, it would begin soon and I couldn't be late. It's in my honor after all. Tucking the music box under one arm, I swim away.

* * *

I make it just in the nick of time. Dad has just taken his seat when I swim in from the servant's entrance in the kitchens and took my place with the chorale. Elena and Bonnie give me curious looks, silently asking where I've been and I just smile and shake my head. I can't very well tell them I was hanging out at the no-mermaid zone, can I? Besties or not, those two are _horrible_ at keeping secrets.

Everyone applauds as John arrives, yes, on the previously mentioned seahorse. What's his name? Golden. Why? Just for the reason he can say "Stay, Golden". Yeah, what a cheese ball and I'm the freak?

John smiles at my Dad and then at the crowd before turning to us, a stern gleam in his eyes telling us that we better not screw up _or else_. What would he do, you ask? He'll throw a hissy fit. And John's hissy fits are to be avoided at all costs.

The first song begins and I just let myself get lost in the music. It's the only time I could feel and be emotional and not be made fun of or scorned for it. Music has a life to it, didn't it? But it doesn't feel alive at all if you don't give it anything of yourself. And while the other mermaids have beautiful voices, yes, but there is no, forgive me, _heart _to it. And when I'm singing, I don't hate myself because I feel free.

We perform our set list to loud applause, John preening through it all. Lucky for us, no hissy fits later. Dad smiles at me as I float towards him, giving him a quick hug before they deem it inappropriately human and giving the same treatment to Mom.

"You were lovely, Caroline." Mom says to me, smiling but it still felt cold. There is just no _warmth _and I'm underwater, yeah, but for some reason I know a smile should never be cold.

"Of course, Liz. Our daughter is the best singer in the kingdom, in all the seas even." Dad tells Mom and she nods, agreeing. "A trait that should help with her marriage, I hope."

Okay, wait what?

I blink a few times before repeating, "Marriage?"

Dad turns to me and explains. "Yes. Prince Tyler has agreed towards a union."

Union? Prince Tyler?

"You want me to marry him?"

"Yes."

Blunt. Cold. As usual. It should not be that way.

"But he lives in the Pacific Ocean!"

"And I'm sure you'll adapt, Caroline." He stares down at me as I splutter for something to say. "He'll be arriving in a three months time to bring you home with him. I'm sure you can get all your affairs sorted by then."

"Dad, did you even ask me if I wanted to marry him?" I'm hyperventilating and I want to scream so I do. "I'm your daughter! Why are you treating me like this?!"

"You're emotional again." Dad gestures for the guards to take me away. "You will not be let out of your room till you can act like a proper mermaid."

* * *

I seethe in my room for what feels like forever but is only a few hours and all I could think about was the more time I spend stuck there, the closer Prince Tyler is coming to bring me back with him to live half way around the world. Why does my life suck so much? What horrible thing have I done to deserve this?

I pout and look at the mirror in my room. I've been able to identify expressions on my face for the years but this one had been appearing more frequent recently. I'm sad. I bow my head and let out stuttering breaths, the bubbles around me swirling and floating out the window and as I watch them leave this cold prison I know what I had to do.

There is no way I am spending another day of my life living in that palace of emotionless creatures and then marrying some prick who didn't even care enough to ask _me_ if _I_ want to marry him. No way. No more of this.

First thing I do is use my birthright, my hair redder and my eyes a shimmering green. Then I change my scales from gold and silver to green. Gold and silver scales signify royalty after all and it is too much a giveaway. Second, I pack into my small bag (a long time ago gift from Damon) a few things I could not bear to leave behind, mostly items from scavenging trips at Deep End with Damon. A silver fork, a smoking pipe and the ivory box with the dancer. Lastly, I squeeze out of the window of my room and I'm gone.

It's amazing how no one notices me leave. It's like no one really even cares. Which should hurt but I'm too glad for my freedom to care.

I focus on swimming away from the palace as far as I could but I'm miles away from the bright, golden walls when I realize I have nowhere to go. The nearest kingdom is too far away for me to reach before my father is undoubtedly going to make sure there is no place where I could hide in the seven oceans once he finds out I'd ran away. I certainly couldn't hide out at Deep End before then.

But what about-

No, Caroline, that's stupid. There are rules from that for a reason. It's dangerous. And what if...what if….

What if? Come on, who am I kidding? I'd be dead anyway if I stay underwater. Not literally but in all the ways that matter. I'd be forced to live this cold life in this cold world with a cold husband.

I've had enough. I want warmth. I want to feel. I want to live.

So to the human world it was.

* * *

The first moment my head surfaces from the water strangely feels like I am being born again. It's the first feel of air on my cold skin and to see the stars in the dark sky so clearly and to see a ship, one that wasn't underwater and rotting, floating on the waves. There are loud noises, laughter and singing and bright, colorful lights exploding into the sky.

It's…it's _marvelous_. And it is so new and I feel overwhelmed by it all. So much to see, hear, _feel _and I want more of it.

I swim closer to the ship, making sure I am surrounded by shadows so if anyone looks down in the water they would not see me. Secrecy is still a necessity…until I get legs. Oh God, just the thought makes me want to burst.

From the side of the deck, I could see humans, my first glimpse of them and not just from paintings and tales from the elders. And I tell you now, those stories were very inaccurate. None of them are sporting swords and had hooks for hands. They look basically like us except dry and with legs of course.

How do they walk with those? How do they stay balanced even with gravity? How weird. Humans are weird and yet…fascinating.

There are around twenty of them at the deck, young and old, of different shapes and sizes. The ones nearest to my view are the young ones, about my age with their youthful laughter and a carefree quality to them. They could feel emotion and are showing it openly, not caring, not minding it at all.

There are three of them. The youngest was a blonde girl in a silver dress that showed her glorious tanned legs (would mine look like them? I really hope so), the second was a girl with messy dark hair, dressed in a black dress and third was a tall boy with dark hair and eyes. He's drinking a dark liquid from a bottle and occasionally handing it to either girl sitting beside him.

"How does it feel to finally be twenty, brother dear?" The blonde asks the boy, grinning at him in an almost mocking yet playful way. "Another year and you're really an adult."

He rolls his dark eyes, takes a long swig. "Stop being a hag, Rebekah."

She pouts. "I'm never a hag."

"A brat then," He replies. "As always."

The blonde scowls and retorts unhappily. "I am not a brat!"

"I have another word for you but I'm trying to keep things delicate for Anna dear, here." He grins down at the girl at his right whose faced reddened at his attention. He doesn't seem to notice though since he's bantering with the blonde again.

"And let me guess, it beings with a B and ends with a-"

"No, more like it begins with a C and ends with a-"

"Kol!"

The three humans look up as a woman with strawberry blonde hair calls them over. "Time to blow out your candles!"

"Mom, I'm too old for this now…" The boy –Kol- tried to protest but is walking towards his mother anyway. The two girls follow him and Kol lets out an unhappy grunt and looks up at the sky as they all start to sing _Happy Birthday_ to him. When they finish, he blows out his candles and they all clap happily.

"Happy Birthday, Prince Kol." Rebekah grins at her brother and kisses him on the cheek sweetly. He rolls his eyes and makes a show of rubbing his cheek to get rid of the pinkish gloss from her lips.

"Alright, let's cut the cake…"

I could only watch them as they ate and laughed. Music starts playing and they are dancing, twirling, spinning and even bumping against each other very closely. Are they cold? Do they need the friction to keep warm? Why was the blonde kissing that boy now?

Humans are so weird and yet I want to be in their world now. It looks beautiful, bright and alive and I want to see more of it and be in it.

Kol looks annoyed with everyone around him and walks away, nearer to where I could see more of him. He is really quite…handsome for a human, good enough for a merman even and merfolk were the most beautiful creatures there are. His chiseled looks make him appealing visually but there is a sadness in his dark eyes that reminded me of myself.

Anna follows him quietly and pokes him lightly on his arm. "You having fun, Prince Kol?"

Kol scowls at her. "Could you stop calling me that? I am not a prince-"

"You're descended from Queen Victoria, so technically still royalty."

"Yes, how could I forget?" He rolls his eyes. He seems to do that a lot. "My parents only drilled that into my brain the moment I was born."

Anna just smiles at him in a way that is tender, hanging on to his every word like he really is a prince. What emotion is that? I'd never seen it before, not in my world anyway.

Kol doesn't seem to notice that unknown emotion though and just stares on ahead, lost in thought. Anna pulls him back into conversation again before long. "What did you wish for?"

She hastily adds. "But you don't have to tell me, wish not coming true if you do and all."

He shakes his head. "It's fine. It's not going to come true anyway."

Her eyebrow's furrowed in question and concern. "Why?"

He stares at her for a minute before taking a sip from his bottle. He grins when he looked back at her. "I wished that my life would become exciting."

"FIRE!"

Well, he gets his wish.

* * *

Despite the crew's efforts, the boat is on fire in mere seconds and the people are put into the lifeboats and out of the fire's way before anyone could get hurt. Kol is quick to get Anna into a lifeboat and yet he doesn't go with her despite her vehement protests. He is busy helping other people get away and everything is just a chaotic blur, happening too fast. The first just keeps growing and getting warmer until he is surrounded in it. He finally has to jump into the water to escape, narrowly missing me actually and wait–

He's floundering in the water, trying his best not to sink.

Don't tell me he can't swim.

Still floundering.

Seriously?

I roll my eyes (oh look, new habit!) and I went to save the human boy who is doing a great impersonation of a rock now.

I end up dragging Kol's unconscious body to shore hours later (it was quite a swim towards land) and it is dawn by the time I am able to pull him unto the sand (which was quite a feat since I am still not dry so I basically I am dragging myself and him. Seriously).

I couldn't really get him more help since I am waiting for my legs so I just lay there on the sand with him and I could not help but stare. Not in a creepy way, just fascinated. I've never been this close to a human (ever really, this was my first human sighting remember?) and Kol's face is all borderline androgynous, masculine and feminine at the same time. I count each individual eyelash before tracing the contours of his face. The ridge of his nose, his forehead, his cheeks, his chin and then those lips, soft and thin and pink.

I've never kissed anyone before. No merman has ever wanted to loss me and I don't want them either and yet I want to kiss him. What would be the difference between my kind and his? Would he taste, feel different? Or would it be the same? Probably less wet….

He starts to stir and I panic as I realize I am still a bit damp. I need to get dry. Now! Panicking, I try to come up with something to do and just end up letting out a girlish squeak as Kol finally wakes up and looks up at me, dark eyes still dreamy, not fully awake yet. I hold my breath as I hold his gaze and finally (Thank you Poseidon!) his eyes flutter shut again.

"There's somebody there!"

There are people coming and I have to get away so I drag myself as fast as I could towards the large rock at the right of the shore and hide behind it as people surround the unconscious boy on the sand.

* * *

The men carry Kol away and I tell myself he would be alright. I have no reason to worry. I already saved him from drowning, the hard part was over. I just have to get dry, find some clothes (I noticed nudity wasn't a big trend for humans) and then live amongst the humans like I am actually one of them and not half-fish.

Easy enough.

I wait for a few more minutes before I am completely dry and I watch fascinated as my fin glowed white, so bright it almost blinded me and then….

Legs!

I lift one up into the air, inspecting my toes, the nails a bright purple. I inspect the other to see if they are the same. It looks to all be in order.

Now to walk.

Oh Poseidon.

How do humans do it? Walking is hard! Really, really hard! How do they keep their balance and not fall into the sand like how I've been doing for the best part of my time?

Seriously, how?

My nails are gray now and I glare down at my useless feet for a minute before getting fed up and grabbing a handful of sand, throwing it at the ocean.

Why am I always such a failure? I couldn't be a good mermaid and now I couldn't be a good human. Fat load of good all this is. All it's done for me is given me vacillating nail color.

There are people again and I try to crawl towards the rock again but my new limbs wouldn't cooperate. They are dead weight and I couldn't hide in time before two human women are looking at me with wide eyes.

* * *

Turns out those two human women are servants or well, one of them is a 'maid' and the other is a 'personal assistant'. They both work for the richest family in town – the Mikaelsons. They are both pretty shocked when they see me, naked on the shore and asks me repeatedly if I am alright and if someone has 'raped' me. What is 'rape'?

I don't really get much word in as Sage, the personal assistant, waits with me as Emily, the maid, goes off to get more help and clothes.

Sage's hair is the exact same shade as my glamoured hair.

Two men come back with Emily, both are tall and dark-haired. 'Elijah' wraps a blanket around me and asks me questions, mostly about what happened to me and 'Finn' picks me up and carries me away from the shore.

My nails are black now. I don't know where they are taking me and as much splendor I was able to witness last night, the stories warning me about how horrible humans are ring through my head.

What if they find out about me? Will I leave my life in a tank? Be cut open and studied? And worst yet, doom the rest of the merfolk?

Yes, they are cold and uncaring but they are still my people, my kind. They do not deserve to suffer and die. And I would not speak and endanger them. I refuse.

Elijah is talking to Sage now, asking what she knows about me so far but Sage just said something like "Maybe she's mute?" and Elijah frowns, staring at me before making hand gestures I could not understand.

I blink at him and he sighs, turning back to Sage. "She doesn't seem to know sign language."

Sage shrugs. "Well, she hasn't spoken so far."

"Or maybe she's just afraid." Finn finally speaks before looking down at me, smiling kindly. It is the first warm smile I've ever received. "It's okay, duckie. You're safe."

My chin quivers as I let out a relieved breath and I look down at my nails. They're amber.

* * *

They bring me to a spare room, placing me on a bed. It's dry and doesn't seem to be water-damaged from being in the sea for so long. This would take some getting used to, constant dryness.

The four humans don't leave yet though, just staring at me curiously before Elijah takes a seat on the chair by the bed. Sage leans on the wall and Finn taks a seat on the edge of the mattress. Emily remains by the door.

I look down at my still amber nails as my fingers fiddle with the blanket. I've never felt dry material before and it feels warm against my skin. Dryness is odd but warmth was rather lovely, isn't it?

Elijah starts. "Pardon but may I ask what's your name?"

I look at Finn. I've just met the guy and he's human but he'd been kind so far. Though I still have no idea what a 'duckie' was. He smiles again, warm smiles and he nods at me, encouraging me to answer.

I look back at Elijah. "Caroline. My name's Caroline."

"And do you know what happened to you, Caroline?" Elijah asks, slowly, carefully.

And I look down again. My nails are gray.

How much could I tell them before it becomes too risky to hide what I am, who I have to protect? My parents are cold and cruel but they are my lineage, my heritage and wasn't all that is left when we die? I have to protect them. I have to.

"I don't remember."

* * *

They get me some clothes and after learning I could not walk, Finn carries me into what they called a 'car' which is odd to be inside because it moved quickly and I stare outside the window like a small, giddy child before I start feeling woozy at the fast moving scenery. I have to look away and stare down at my now green nails.

What do all these colors mean? I've never had changing nail color when I was a mermaid, what made being a human different?

_Everything_, of course.

We arrive at our destination and Finn carries me out of the car and into a tall house that has many windows. It smells very odd inside, strong odors all over the area. We go into a small grey box that feels like we are being pulled by gravity. A man in a white coat is waiting for us and he asks me questions, puts a cold metal against my chest that makes me shiver (I don't like the cold anymore, never again) and then he asks more questions.

I try to answer what I thought would be safe to reveal and just shake my head at questions I think are too revealing or I just don't understand.

They move me to another room and I have to keep still as I am moved slowly into a small box. I could hear still hear their voices as they talk about me.

"There doesn't seem to be any brain damage."

"So, this is what, amnesia?" Sage asks. "Aren't those just common in soap operas?"

"Uncommon in real life but not impossible," The doctor answers.

Elijah interjects. "So, Miss Caroline is a mystery then."

* * *

They take me back to their house which really is quite big and lovely now that I am able to really look at it. Emily says the Mikaelsons are the richest family in town and it shows. It isn't as big as the palace in Atlantica but very few things could leave up to that light show of pure conceit.

Finn carries me into the house and I wonder if he minded carrying me about like I was cargo but he doesn't seem to, he even smiles at me when he catches me looking at him and he brings me back to the room earlier without any signs of discontent.

Elijah tries to reassure me as I settled into my new surroundings. "You're welcome to stay with us as long as you'd like Caroline. We'll do all we can to help you with your predicament."He gestures to Emily who is by the door. "Emily will see to any need of yours."

Sage whispers something in his ear, something like "What about your parents?" and he whispers back "I'll deal with them". Elijah smiles at me kindly before taking Sage with him and leaving.

Finn smiles at me once more. "Give it time, duckie. We'll find out what happened."

And then he leaves too.

I still feel that anxious little fluttering in her belly. What strange bodies humans have. But humans have been kind to me so far. Maybe this wouldn't be so horrible?

* * *

I spend days in my new room. Partly out of choice since I still am a little wary of my gracious hosts and mostly because I have a hard time learning how to walk. The doctor has pointed out I am physically healthy but marked up my inability to walk to trauma or some minor atrophy. I don't really know how to explain that I do not know how to walk at all.

Emily helps me mostly and I try to mimic the way she moves before almost falling to the floor if not for her. Finn offers to take me to and fro for meals but I decline and ask my meals be sent to my room because it is really embarrassing. I feel like a guppy relearning everything about her life. I didn't like this feeling.

On my fourth day there though, Finn comes into my room before dinner time and smiles sheepishly at me. "I'm sorry, duckie, but I'm afraid you have to have dinner with us tonight."

"Why?"

He grimaces. "Mother and Father have come home and we've explained your situation to them and they are sympathetic. They still want to meet you though, at the least to make you feel more welcome."

Finn's nervousness is making me nervous. He seems the type to be calm all the time so anything that unnerves him must be something horrible indeed.

"They don't trust me, do they?" I ask, knowing enough from my own parents to gauge such things.

"They haven't met you." Finn gives me his warm smile. "I'm sure that once they do, they will see that you have no ploys towards our family."

Right…of course I don't. Aside from lying about not remembering much, I am totally honest. I just have to get through this dinner and convince everyone that I am not a liar (even though I was).

Great.

* * *

I want to walk to dinner but I am still learning how to so Finn just carries me towards the dining room. Everyone at the table looks at us as we enter. Finn puts me down on the chair between his and Elijah's.

I look around the table and first saw, at the head of the table, a man who resemblances Finn and Elijah, his hair though was a light brown and he stares at me suspiciously with dark eyes. To his right was –wait a minute.

That's the woman on the boat a few days ago, with the strawberry blonde hair, Kol's mom.

Wait, _Kol's mom_.

I look across from me at the two siblings who are both staring at me in different ways.

Rebekah looks outraged. "Is that my dress?"

I look down at the navy blue dress I', wearing. Oh so, the clothes must've been hers. I haven't really bothered to think about where they come from, I'm just happy to have something to wear. Obviously, the owner is not so happy though.

"Rebekah," Elijah's voice is a clear warning. "Be nice to our guest."

The blonde huffs indignantly but stops staring daggers at me. I try to avoid her stare and shift mine to the boy at her side, his dark eyes staring at me like I am a confusing riddle.

Who is it? Come on, you know who it is.

"Have we met before?" Kol asks, not taking his gaze off me.

I don't really know what to say, how to answer that without raising more questions. So I just stare at him with wide eyes and wondered if they could all smell my fear. My nails are black.

His eyes widen in realization. "It was you!"

"Was what, darling?" His mother asks.

"She's the girl I saw, the one that saved me." Kol answers, like he was telling them that _Yes, we are the supreme rulers of the universe now. Let's party!_

"Oh, you mean the girl you've been moaning about in your sleep?" Rebekah makes a face and gave me those dagger eyes again. "Are you sure it's her?"

Kol nods. "I was at the beach and you say you found her at the beach. Coincidence? I think not."

Elijah looks at me. "Why didn't you tell us that?"

Oh Poseidon, this is just going worse by the minute. What am I supposed to say? I decide to play heroine to some human boy, perfectly happy to know I'd never have to see him again and then guess what, he's your brother? Are there like only fifty-five people in the human world?

"I didn't know he was your brother." I finally answer meekly.

The whole room is silent before the man at the head of the table spoke. "Well, that is rather remarkable."

His wife just shakes her head at the ridiculousness of this scenario before smiling at me. It's warm. What is with these humans and their warm smiles? Is it a human thing or just with this family, the ability to relax you with their charming smiles of warmth? (I know it's something that doesn't run in my lineage or all merfolk in general). "Nevertheless, you saved our son, Caroline We are very grateful."

"You have saved our lives. We are eternally grateful." Rebekah and Kol quip together.

I stare at them in confusion.

Humans are so weird.

* * *

The rest of the Mikaelsons are really rather nice.

Esther seems to have taken a shine to me (saving her son from death was the ultimate move apparently). Rebekah isn't cruel but still a bit snooty, she was obviously grateful for what I did for her brother and she doesn't make a fuss about me borrowing her clothes. Mikael is not as congenial as the rest of his family but he is welcoming enough by not snooping me out like I'm a criminal

And Kol…

Kol is frustrating, frustrating in that way I don't know how to deal with him. He always seems to be around me.

When Emily would help me walk around the garden, he is coincidentally at the gazebo where Emily and I would stop for a break. When Rebekah takes me shopping so I don't have to borrows hers anymore, he tags along for no apparent reason except to fight with Rebekah on what I should wear (um, don't I have an opinion?). When Finn would come to my room and ask how I am, Kol would follow him in.

Why is he acting like that? I mean, yeah, I did save his life but can't he just get me a seahorse or whatever the land equivalent of that was and move on? He doesn't have to stalk me like a shark after its prey. Are human boys supposed to be this strange or is it just him?

I am just grateful we are never alone. He never dares to venture into my room alone and when I am out of my room, I'm either with Emily or some other Mikaelson but never alone. I dread to see how Kol would act towards me if we're alone. What would he do?

And then it happens.

I'm in the library, trying to read the books there. They have many books and I spend days reading about human culture and trying to understand how they are. So far, they seem to be a lot odder than we thought. This book I'm reading in particular is so weird.

"_Twilight_? Really?" Kol's voice makes me jump and I drop the book in my hands, placing a hand over my heart as I try to restart it.

I glare at the smirking boy at the doorway. "You startled me."

He just shrugs and mumbles out an apology though it isn't real. He's playing with me again. He seems to love that. He walks over and picks the poor, fallen book off the rug, scowling at it and throwing it on the coffee table. "Rebekah should really stop bringing rubbish into this house."

"What's bad about it?" I ask.

Kol makes a choking noise. "What isn't bad about it?" He takes a seat on the couch beside me, so close his thigh brushed mine. It's much too close. "I mean from the stupid heroine to the serial killer love interest, not to mention it makes vampires freaking _sparkle_.

"And all the other bad values in there too like teen pregnancy and pedophilia." He makes a careless gesture. "Take your pick."

"You seem to know a lot about something you seem to dislike."

"I had to write a paper on it last year." He shakes his head in disgust. "What happened to the greats like _The Great Gatsby _and Shakespeare?"

I have no idea what any of that was and it must've showed on my expression because Kol balks at me. "You've never heard of Shakespeare?"

I shake my head.

"F. Scott Fitzgerald?"

No.

"Hemingway? Dickens?"

Nope.

"Alright. How about more modern stuff? Chuck Palanuik? Neil Gaiman?"

Nu-uh.

He looks almost desperately. "J.K. Rowling?"

I give him a bemused smile and shrugs. He collapses back against the sofa before sitting up again. "I can't believe it. It's like you're from another world."

I stiffen and tried not to let it show, just smiling at him and try to keep calm. Keep calm, Caroline. Keep calm.

Then he frowns. "Maybe it's your amnesia? Made you forget about those things?"

I shrug. "Maybe."

He looks down at the rug and looks really daunted. "Well, that's sad. Literature is like part of being human. To forget that is like to not be human."

_If only you knew._

He suddenly gets up and goes to one of the shelves, pulling out a thick book and then returning to the couch beside me. "If you're going to remember, you should always start with the fun stuff."

He cracks open the book and introduces me to the world of Harry Potter.

* * *

Before I know it, a month has passed by and I am still with the Mikaelsons. The family has gotten used to me, treats me kindly albeit differently with each of them. And I've gotten used to them. It's a strange feeling to be with humans who have warm smiles and aren't afraid to be emotional.

Rebekah is the most emotional of them all. She wears her feelings on her skin like armor. Just daring anyone to piss her off and see if they lived once she is done with them (I have met less bloodthirsty killer whales).

Elijah is the most level-headed one, pragmatic, moralistic and polite.

Finn is kind as always, if not a bit protective of me once finding out how much time I've been spending with Kol.

And Kol? Kol is still frustrating. And very crazy, unstable and inappropriate. He does not seem to understand the concept of personal space and his touch though not pervasive is much too frequent. He always seems to have an excuse to touch me.

The other day when I stumbled in the garden during my morning stroll he came to the rescue like Harry Potter without the hippogriff and carried me back to my room despite my protests. Then at lunch, he passed me every dish I asked for, despite the facts I was asking someone else or it wasn't even near him. And after dinner, he walked me back to my room and kissed me on my cheek good night.

Remember when I said I've never kissed anyone before?

You can just imagine the panic attacks I had after that. I swear I can still feel the warmth of his lips on my skin. It feels scalding. I never thought I'd miss the cold.

* * *

A week later, Kol takes me to town.

We take his sports car, it was black and shiny and he caresses the hood of it like it was a lover. The same way Damon would caress his triton. Boys and their toys, they are the same no matter what species. That's nice to know.

The top of the car is down and the wind blows through my hair and I giggle at the sensation. I'm wearing the sunglasses Rebekah bought for me our last shopping trip (which are weekly now because I found out quickly that Rebekah loves to shop quite a lot) and Kol wore his, protecting our eyes from the bright glare of the sun.

Music is blasting from the car and I don't know where it came from but the loud sound makes me want to dance like how I saw the people on the ship did, happy and carefree. I wonder if Kol would dance with me if I ask. Not that I want to dance with him but he is the only one I knew around so…

Right, shutting up now.

We arrive in town and Kol parks his car. He holds my hand as we walk around the place, there must be some kind of event because there are kiosks everywhere, vendors selling all sorts of things, trinkets that sparkled and shined with thingamabobs that made noise and so much more.

I hold on to Kol all the while, afraid I would be lost amongst everything. It is all so bright, colorful and _alive_. Why is it humans could be so alive and be able to live with it every day and yet my kind cannot? Is that why we live longer because as we have no souls or passions, we exhaust less of our life spans? That must be it.

There is a vendor selling fish and all the fish in the aquarium look towards me and I grin at them yet felt a pang of sadness at the same time. _Do you all miss the sea? Do you miss the cold? Do you want to be free?_

I have to drag myself away before I do or say anything foolish and we stop as people start dancing and singing on the streets.

_Wake up kids_

_We've got the dreamers disease_

_Age fourteen we got you down on your knees_

_So polite, you're busy still saying please_

"What song is this?" I ask Kol over the loud music and he stares at me oddly as he usually does.

"The New Radicals? _You Get What You Give_?"

I just stare at him.

He raises his hands in surrender. "Oh come on! What planet really? Neptune?"

_Frenemies, who when you're down ain't your friend_

_Every night we smash their Mercedes Benz_

___First we run and then we laugh till we cry_

"Will you dance with me?" I look up at him hopefully.

He shakes his head. "I don't dance."

I remember him not dancing on the ship on his birthday so maybe he is telling the truth but I want to dance. I wanted to ever since I found the ivory box. My whole being practically hums for excitement and I give him pleading eyes before he sighs and gives in.

He twirls me and I giggle as he maneuveres me gracefully, I'm pressed up against him and I could see the specks of gold and silver in his dark eyes. I want to count those eyelashes again and trace the contours of his face but I restrain myself cause he might think I'm more weird than he already does.

_But when the night is falling_

_And you cannot find the light_

_If you feel your dream is dying_

Kol's staring down at me with a tender smile on his face, it reminds me of the one Anna gave him on his birthday. That emotion I couldn't identify, that emotion that makes you want to hang on to their every word and makes you feel special when they look at you like that. That's what I feel – special.

I don't feel like the emotional freak of a mermaid or the human wannabe. I am just…me. He looks at me like I'm just me. And for a moment, a single forbidden minute I think _Could I stay here forever? With you?_

_Hold tight_

_You've got the music in you_

_Don't let go_

_You've got the music in you_

Could I be human forever? Forget everyone from Atlantica and just live here? With Kol? No more coldness and just pure warmth forever?

I almost want to ask him, _Can I stay with you? _

_One dance left_

_This world is gonna pull through_

_Don't give up_

_You've got a reason to live_

"Of course you can." He smiles at me, eyes sparkling with that undeniable warmth.

Wait, did I say that out loud?

At my panicked expression he laughs and pulles me closer until I am enveloped in nothing but his warmth. It's a good feeling.

* * *

My nails keep changing from blue to violet now. The latter seems to be when I'm with Kol. I don't know what they mean. I wish I did but none of the humans would know what this means and I'd have to explain a lot if I do tell them about it. It is too risky.

I spend a lot of time in the library, reading all the beautiful stories humans have created overtime. Harry Potter had been lovely, even if the mermaids were a little upsetting for me. Brought back to many memories and I had to feign tiredness to appease Kol's concerns.

I mostly read books Kol recommended. Most of which was a bit too advance for my seriously lacking knowledge of humanity but what I did not know Kol explained patiently. He sometimes calls me a Neptunian when something supposedly simple is hard for me but mostly is very patient and kind. It is lovely.

Nowadays, Kol makes me read his favorite modern-day fantasy writer, Neil Gaiman. I've read _Coraline_ and _The Graveyard Book_ but Kol wants me to read another book today.

"_Stardust_," I read the cover and turn it over to read the summary on the back.

Kol explains anyway. "It's about a star that falls to the earth after watching humanity for so long. She finds love in a human bloke and they live happily ever after among the stars."

I'm frozen in place.

What irony to have such a story in my hands? Does he know about me and what I am? And these tender, lovely, painful emotions that make feel special and yet terrified when he looks at me? Does he know how I wish our story would end?

"And of course, there are witches and magic and stuff." Kol shrugs. "All the best stories need a villain."

I dearly hope not in our case.

* * *

I have been avoiding returning to the beach for fear of seeing anyone of my kind come looking for me. I know that my father would not endanger any of his people by sending them so close to humans and yet I should never underestimate the man. Cold practicality is a merman trait after all.

But I want my bag and I hope it hasn't been washed away by the ocean or taken by some stranger. Please, please no.

I make my way one sunny afternoon to the beach, it is much too warm to be out but it never mattered to me. I revel in it despite the risk of sunburns as Rebekah warns me about. _You're too_ _pale _She said. _You'll probably catch on fire without sunscreen._

I feel that familiar tug of dread and fear in my belly and I don't have to check to see if my nails are gray. But I need to do this. I take my first few tentative steps on the sand, walking closer and closer until my feet are just a few inches away from where the waves crash unto the shore, as if trying to pull me back into its world.

I shake my head. _No. Never again._

I stare at the blue green waves for a few minutes before I wander over behind the huge rock where my bag is. It is dry from weeks under the sun and the salty smell of the ocean is wafting of it. I pick it up and make my way back to the sand but freeze when I see who is in the water.

"Caroline."

"Dad."

What is he doing here? This is much too close for him and doesn't want to ever be this close to the humans. He hates them. And how did he find me?

"Is this what you've been doing, Caroline? Playing at being something you're not? Communing yourself with those…those…"

"Humans?"

"Yes." His cold sneer is colder than ever. "Well, you're done with that now. It's time to go home."

My hands tremble with anxiety and fear.

Home? Back to the cold? And away from the warmth? _From Kol_?

"I don't want to."

His eyes narrow. "Don't disobey me, Caroline. Your fiance's arriving next week and you need to be there to welcome him."

"He's supposed to come next month!"

"Somebody tipped him off that you plan on backing out so he decided to travel faster."

I am panicking, my entire being quaking from head to toe as I try to think of some way to escape this fate. I don't want to go back to the ocean, to the merpeople, to the future husband I didn't choose.

I want to stay here. But maybe if I explain to him, the things I've seen and felt. Maybe he will understand. Maybe I could stay.

"Daddy, please, I don't want to go back." I plead. "I want to stay here. We were wrong. Humans are nice and _warm _and they…they're not afraid to _feel_. It's amazing how much color and life there is. If you could only-"

"Enough."

I close my mouth and stard at him in apprehension, his gaze is piercing and I shiver from it alone. His gaze is calculating before he grins that cold, cold smile. It is chilling."Are you in love, Caroline?"

I stare at him in confusion. "What is 'love'?"

"It's when two people share a soul." He explains. "It's a legend among our kind, forgotten and discarded for good reason so fools like you won't follow it. It is said that if a mermaid is loved by a human, she will share his soul and have her own. That is love."

Hope sputters inside me and before long I am overcome by this hope, this joy of the possibility that if Kol…Kol _loves _me, I would have my own soul and we could be together even after death. It is a possibility so beautiful it makes me ache. I want it so badly.

I stare at my father with bright, shiny eyes. "If he loves me, can I stay?"

"_If _he loves you," He corrects.

"But if he does…"

"Do you want to make a deal?"

My mind races at that. My father is excellent at making bets because he is great at predicting the outcome. With a coldly logical mind a calculating nature came hand in hand. And am I willing to bet against him?

"Yes."

But I have to.

"You have three days to prove he loves you, this human boy of yours, with _true love's kiss_." He says. "And if you _don't_, you will come back home and do as your duty dictates."

It is risky. And for a moment of pure doubt I wonder _What if I Kol doesn't love me? _

The very idea scares and hurts me and I don't even want to dwell on that thought anymore because I want him to, I wanted him to love me. But if he doesn't, I would go back to the world of cold dwellings and people. Which seems appropriate, the cold may balm the ache of rejection.

"Okay."

* * *

I don't really know how to go about kissing Kol. As I said I've never kissed anyone before and I don't really know what to do. Do I just press our lips together? I don't know. I feel hopeless.

How would I even initiate the kiss? I doubt just attacking him at the breakfast table would prove Kol's love for me, his belief in my insanity maybe. I need a plan but I suck at planning. I need help.

Which low and behold, here it comes.

Elena contacts me with her birthright and apparently Bonnie has been watching me with hers ever since I ran away. So not really sure if this is a good idea, I go back to the beach and find Damon in the water, his triton out.

"Damon,"

And Damon smiles. There is warmth to his that was different from the others. It isn't the supernova of Kol's but it is still there, like embers. How did I never notice it before?

"I have come to help since I happen to be the bravest of us all."

"Or the least with survival instincts." I quip and he grins.

"I have missed you, Caroline. No one puts me down as cruelly as you."

I roll my eyes. "Your ego does seem to have inflated since I left."

"Well, if I didn't care for you so much I'd drag you back to the sea so you can do your job of deflating my ego properly."

I pause before speaking. "I never noticed before that you're different. You're just like me, aren't you?"

He grins a secret smile. "I spent one year as a human way back when you were too young to remember, caused quite a commotion for a bit and then everyone just chose to forget about it."

This surprises me and not at the same time "Why'd you go back?"

"My brother needed me."

I nod, understanding completely. I would go back to if I had someone that needed me like Stefan needed Damon. Maybe our kind was cold but we could care to, just not the degree of humans but it is there like a faintly beating heart.

* * *

Damon's advice is simple. _Tell him how you feel_. Like it is that easy! To be honest, I do not know how to describe how I feel. It is so chaotic, like I am all over the place, trying to grasp on to one single thought and failing.

And it is so scary. Telling Kol I love him, leaving me open for him to ridicule is as daunting as anything and I don't think I could bear it if he laughs at me but I need to do this. So I would try at the least.

I go into the library. I don't want to call it our spot but it technically is. We spend much of our time together here, reading and talking and there is one time we fell asleep and was only woken up by Emily for dinner. I still remember being cradled in Kol's arms as he snored like a humpback whale.

The memory makes me smile.

Kol is sitting on the couch, re-reading _Catcher in the Rye_ which he admits is his favorite book and that…that warmth inside me that must be love overcomes and words pass through my mind before disappearing and I forget to say them.

Then the fear comes. And I start thinking about all the horrible scenarios this could lead to. He would laugh at me. He would tell everyone at dinner so they could laugh with him at me. He would kick me out. He would reject me and ask if we could still be friends.

Well, I'm not sure if we could be friends with me living in the Pacific Ocean then since he rejected me so all the scenarios weren't very good, Maybe I could do this some other time ti-

"Caroline?" Kol finally notices me and puts down his favorite book, beckoning me over with one hand and I slowly move closer, taking my usual seat beside him on the couch. He grins at me, leaning really close until his breath is tickling my face. "Why so quiet, sweets? Are you planning anything nefariously Neptunian today?"

I couldn't even insult back so overcome by fear that I try to smile and it comes out a grimace. He becomes concerned at that and pulls me closer with a hand on my shoulder. "Hey, are you okay?"

I nod, wincing. "Yeah, of course."

"You look like you're about to puke."

"Stomach bug," I reply. "I'll be fine."

He still looks skeptical. "Are you sure?"

"Mm-hmm."

He goes back to reading and I stare at him as he does so, wanting to just get the words out but knowing the delivery affected the message. How do I say I love him and make it sound romantic and now cheesy and cliché?

"Kol…"

"Hm?"

"i…I…"

He looks up again.

"I think I – no, no I know that I- I…I…Oh Poseidon, help me. I love…"

He eyes me curiously. "You love?"

_You._

"Literature."

I chicken out like a fucking coward.

"You were right. You're not human without it."

Kol blinks at this but just agreed and we discuss the merits of J. D. Salinger. Meanwhile, inside my head, I have killed myself ten times.

* * *

Damon face palms when I tell him what happened at the library and he looks ready to just throw his triton at me and end all our misery. "This is Day Two, Mermaid Barbie, sundown tomorrow is the freaking deadline. You haven't the time or the luxury to chicken out!"

I pout and want to throw a rock at him but he's right. I am wasting precious time because I am a freaking coward. I hate it when Damon's right. It feels natural.

"What should I do then?" I asks him and he purses his lips as he thinks of a Plan B.

* * *

Plan B is supposed to be the Blue Lagoon. I am supposed to take Kol out on a date and we'd be on a boat and he'd rowing towards inside a small dark area, it'll get really romantic, we'll kiss and problem solved. Right?

_No_ because Kol's brother Nik comes out of freaking nowhere from England and he whisks all his siblings away to spend time with them. By the time Kol got back he was too tired to even visit me at the library as he went straight to bed. Day Two had been wasted and this time it wasn't even my fault.

"Well, why didn't you insist on coming?" Damon asks bluntly.

I splutter. "It was a family thing! I can't just invite myself to an outing I'm not wanted. I don't even know Nik so why would I even want to-"

"To get close to Kol!" Damon exclaims. "His siblings would've been busy with each other. You could've whisked him away somewhere to 'talk' then you'll confess your love for each other and _bam_ true love's kiss!"

I scowl. "I hate you."

"Not as much as you hate yourself right now, I'm sure."

* * *

Last day and I have until sun down to get Kol to give me that soul-sharing kiss. I need it, not because I want to be in this world but because it's Kol. And I've always felt drawn to Kol ever since I saw him on that ship. I have until sundown and this was my last chance.

Things as always are not going well for me. The Mikaelsons are hosting a party, Rebekah's eighteenth birthday to be exact so there are a lot of people everywhere and I'm sitting at one of the tables at the Mikaelson's large garden, just wanting this over with. Parties suck in any world, okay?

Rebekah is being introduced and people clap as Rebekah goes out of the house in the red couture dress that makes Rebekah look like a goddess (preferably one of war and bloodshed and PMS). Kol is escorting her in a black suit and he winks at me when he passes by my table.

All parties go as they do. There's dancing, food and alcohol except in between everyone's wishing the best for Rebekah. Nik gives a particularly lovely speech that makes Rebekah tear up and Kol's speech makes me laugh so hard I almost fall of my chair. It is kind of boring, yeah, but it is a bit better than the one I had for my birthday.

In between there's laughter and smiles (most from the alcohol) but at least there are some. We don't even have alcohol at home because we were underwater. Ugh, no wonder everyone's miserable.

After the eighteen roses, Kol takes a seat at my table with two glasses of champagne in hand. He hands one to me and we make a toast. "To Rebekah, may she always be a crazy, bloodsucking hellion!"

I giggle and Kol spends a few minutes talking to me before he has to go dance with his friend Anna.

_Anna._

His friend on the ship. The girl who stares tenderly at him. The girl who is in love with him.

Oh Poseidon, why do you never make things easy for me?

I know I had to do something. I have to fight, right? I have to fight for the boy I love that loves…wait, I don't even know if he loves me. For all I know, he could be in love with Anna.

Oh Poseidon, I'm going to-

"Sit down, Ariel."

I turn around and sit back down mostly from shock as Damon takes the seat Kol acated. I stare at him in shock, looking around frantically if anyone has noticed him before realizing he had legs and is dressed in a suit, a _very stylish_ suit. He looks like he could be in one of Rebekah's fashion magazines.

"What are you doing here?" I ask him.

Damon rolls his eyes. "Divine intervention. I had a feeling you would do something to mess it up again and I took it upon myself to stop you from doing so." He leans forward until all I could see are the blue of his eyes. "Listen here, Caroline, the villain of this story isn't an evil sea witch. It's not even your Dad and it's not even the girl your boy is dancing with. You know who it is?"

I shake my head, confused. And he smiles, answering. "It's you."

"What?"

"All this time, Caroline, the only thing that held you back was you." Damon explains. "Coming here and meeting Kol was the best thing you ever did but you can't get true happiness until you know he loves you back. And for these past few days, your Dad didn't do anything to sabotage you, you just ruined it all on your own.

"Why? Because you're _afraid_, afraid that he won't feel the same way, afraid that you can't live on without his returned affections. Well, guess what? You can. You're strong, beautiful, smart and brave. Who needs a soul when you've got that?"

I stare at him. "What are you saying, Damon?"

"What I'm saying is that the worst he can do is say no. You can just move on, continue living here. Find some Hugh Hefner to leech off of, become a marine biologist, _anything you want_. Your Dad's too chicken to go up here and you know it. So go over there and tell him how you feel. If he says yes, well, that's awesome. If he says no, life goes on."

I blink trying to process everything he just said. "Did you dab into public speaking when you were here?"

"You'll never know." He smirks. "And here's a clue for you. He's been glaring murder at us since I sat down."

I turn towards where Kol was dancing with Anna in surprise to see that he is glaring darkly at us like he wants to fish fillet Damon (no pun intended) and he wasn't paying attention to Anna. I barely notice Damon getting up to get a glass of champagne, bumping into Rebekah on the way before I stand up and just end this story.

* * *

_One year later…_

"This is the story of a little mermaid who wanted to be part of the human world. She fell in love with a handsome prince who lived in a castle and to be with him she needed legs, so she traded her voice to the sea witch and-"

"Blondie, tell the story right." Damon chides.

I roll my eyes. "You tell it then."

"Once upon a time there was a really troublesome little mermaid who wanted to escape an arranged marriage so she decided to tell everyone to go fry themselves and went up to the human world. She ended up saving this annoying little prick-"

"Hey!" Kol protests and Damon ignores him.

"-but since she saved his life, he let her stay at his house which is not a castle by the way cause he's not a prince no matter who his great times a billion grandmother was. So of course, these two kids fell in love because there really isn't much to do in this place but apparently read books and dance in town like lunatics.

"Then the mermaid's Dad eventually came for her and gave her an ultimatum. Prove his love with a kiss and blahblahblah, lots of trials and errors until her handsome and debonair merman friend came and gave her the strength to go after what she wanted.

"She went up to him, kissed him like it was the end of the freaking world and then they confessed their love for each other. They apparently went inside the house and had sex right after because all that sexual tension between them had been-"

"Ahem," I clear my throat. "And yes, that's the gist of it."

I look down at all the mermaids in the ocean, listening to the tale with surprised and mostly bemused looks on their faces. Damon is grinning at the effect of his riveting storytelling and just pulls Rebekah closer to him. My friend had found his own soul and I couldn't be any happier for him.

I smiled up at my own soul who is caressing my swelling stomach with one hand, the other playing with my blonde curls.

"Do you know what happens now?" I ask him and he looks down at me grinning.

"We shag?"

I roll my eyes before reaching up and pecking him lightly. "No, we live happily ever after."

He shrugs. "Whatever."

Humans, still so weird.


	10. i need a hero

**Sorry this took so long but I was lacking inspiration. I finally got it done and hopefully, have another one written before college starts for me next week. I might combine prompts that go well together. Stay tuned.**

**This was inspired by _Heroes_ and _Sky High_. And if you ask - No, I will not be continuing this. No matter how much you beg.**

**Prompt: "Kol becomes caroline's knight in shining armor" -CastleLover96  
**

******Also, guest reviewers, please give some kind of name. I feel weird crediting a prompt to 'Guest' or 'anon'. **

* * *

Did you know what happens when babies are first born?

Sure, there's a lot of blood, screaming, sweat and tears. Of course they all gush over you after the doctors have cleaned up all the gunk of you. And your parents can't believe that you're finally with them and they whisper – because they don't want to scare you – about how perfect you are. Isn't that just lovely?

It was a different case if your parents were Gifted.

You don't immediately get gushed over, first they clean you up, get a blood sample from you and then they mix that with a special serum that will determined how you're going to have to live your life. If it comes out blue, your parents take you home and you live the rest of your life as one of the special people. If it's red, you get placed in a mundane family and have to get a regular job like everybody else.

One parent would do to pass on the mutation gene that gave you a special ability like flying, super strength or shape shifting. Two means you could have more than one if you're one of those lucky bastards. And if you somehow ended up with that gene when both of your parents are just stereotypically and boringly Normal then wow, you're a winner. The last one is a special case. The mutated gene which they call the Holocene Gene is passed down through genetics so there must've been someone in your family who was Gifted and they passed that on to you but again, rare case.

Usually Gifted babies were from Gifted families. Some have legacies of doing all sorts of good and bad in the world. There were the Heroes and Villains but they all start of as Gifted and go to that special school, St. Gabriel's Academy for the Gifted, in the middle of town. Kids that go there know they're awesome, everyone knows they're awesome so they act like the special dickheads that they were.

I wasn't saying all of the Gifted are bad. They did grow up to become Heroes, saving the world one kitty stuck up in a tree at a time and_ It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Superman_ kind of way. Those Heroes did a lot of good in the world and we're grateful and everything. But when they were young…

They're jerks. Horrible, cocky jerks that looked down upon as Normals (or 'Normies' as they like to derogatorily call us) just because we couldn't freeze an entire lake with a touch of our pinky or read minds. _Really_, they were jerks.

And the worst jerks became the Villains. As in, world domination and kick a puppy kind of way. There weren't that many Gifted families that have legacies for being Villains but they were a few. But good or bad, my parents taught me one thing: _Stay away from those Gifted pricks._

* * *

There was nothing wrong with being perfectly ordinary or Normal. That was my stance on that ever since we were seven and Matt Donovan declared that he was going to be a Hero despite the fact he had no ability besides his cheesy, disarming smile.

"I want to be special and save the world." Matt said, grinning at me all blue eyes and blond hair. Sweet like apple pie, the All-American boy and despite being besotted with him at that age, I scowled and said, "Special's overrated."

But I guess I couldn't really blame Matt for wanting to be 'special'. Normal was less stressful, less danger but also less exciting. Every day at school I could almost hear the quiet groan of the student body as they trudged along their day like zombies. We breathed in the soiled air and repeated the same motions, only broken by decade dances and charity car washes. There was no life here, just routine.

The only exciting part was when some Villain sends a giant robot near the school area and we're sent home so we could watch the Hero of the Week save the day in our TVs at home or when it's senior year for the Gifted.

What happened in senior year? Two words: _Citizen Protection_.

As the title suggests, a citizen was protected. A senior Gifted would come to our school, was assigned another student (not necessarily in the same year) and the Normal student was watched over by the Gifted student until the end of the school year. The teachers of St. Gabriel's plan all sorts of 'tests' for the Gifted student, such as elaborate kidnappings and dressing up as hooligans to 'attack' the Normal student. The Gifted student had to make sure their charge was safe and not seriously harmed. If they didn't, they failed and never graduated.

That's how most Villains were made.

Yes, yes, how sad and tragic and stupid. What the hell was with that system? What if the Normal student got injured in some way the Gifted student could not help? Well, too bad for them because they're still going to end up in a life of wickedness and crime whether they liked it or not.

Cruel maybe but that's their life and their problems. As I said, special was overrated.

* * *

I blinked at my Dad for a full minute, not saying anything. He winced and adjusted his tie, loosening it before fixing it back into place. It was a nervous habit of his, one he ended up with when he first became principal of the high school two years before I started there. With his stoic expression while he did, no one would think he was actually uncomfortable, fastidious maybe but I knew my Dad. I knew when he was unhappy because his hands were tied.

When I first started high school, I didn't expect to be treated differently than all the other students just because my Dad was the principal. My Mom was Police Chief of the city and that didn't mean I was exempted from any trouble so Dad treated me the same as any other student. If I messed up, I got punished, even a little more harshly than others to be honest. My parents wanted me to be a good student and good citizen and I knew better than to let them down.

But I couldn't help but feel that Dad just let me down.

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion, I kept blinking as I tried to absorb the information my Dad just gave me. I didn't know what to say for once and that was surprising because I talked non-stop most of the time. Somebody call the newspapers, Caroline Forbes is speechless!

Dad cleared his throat when the silence was stretched too thin. "Caroline, I know you're not happy…"

"That's an understatement." I felt dazed. This had a dream, a really bad dream – a freaking nightmare.

Dad continued as if he hadn't heard me. "But there is nothing I can do about this. You know these things are random lottery. You got picked this year and the good thing is, after this, you can't get picked again so just bear with me." He let out a sigh when he saw my scowl. "It's only a year, Care Bear, after that you never have to deal with them again."

He couldn't really promise that, could he? At some point in my life I was bound to interact with the Gifties, they practically owned the city. So I just had to suck it up and deal with a few skits where I am in 'danger' and just wait for my assigned 'protector' to come and save me. It was only for a year and my senior year would be Gifted-free, I could at least count on that.

I let out a defeated breath and slumped back on the chair I was sitting on. "What's his name?" I asked.

Dad piped up. "Kol Mikaelson. Tall, dark hair, pyrokinetic. He's supposed to be incognito so you'll barely notice he's there."

Nice, I get stuck with a literal hothead. And even though I couldn't see him, I would still _know_ he's there, lurking, watching me like some freaking stalker. And yeah, his grades were on the line here but couldn't they have picked someone else? I mean out of all the girls at my school, why me?

* * *

After school, my friends and I hung out at our favorite café. As far as first days go, this had to be one of the worst. I usually looked forward to the first day of a school year but I spent almost all of it, sulking that I had to be the protected citizen. The others that had been chosen were pretty hyped up about it but not me. I wanted my privacy and freedom back.

Dana was discussing the new cheerleading routine for Friday's game (which I already finished drawing up last night) and how best to tackle the more difficult parts of practice (aka how to shut Tiki the fuck up because she was still bitter about not being named captain this year after the last captain graduated) when the world literally exploded.

Nah, someone just threw a mailbox at the window and ended up knocking one of the tables down. There was some panic and people scurrying out of the way of broken glass but it wasn't like this had never happened before. It was all part of our world of Heroes and Villains, civilians get glass stuck in their hair and a few cuts.

We were too far away from the mess to really be affected so we just started crawling towards the corner of the room and out of the way of any Villain who's decided to cause havoc today. The café owner is now guiding people towards the exit at the back and the civilians quickly but orderly obey.

I'm near the counter when a hand grabbed me by the arm and my ponytail whipped said person in the face as I pivoted to see who it was.

What greeted me was a tall, dark-haired boy who was looking very pissed. There was some smattering of glass in his black jacket like dotted stars, ultimately making him look like a good representation of the night sky.

His dark eyes were practically searing down at me as he frowned. There was a fresh bruise on his jaw and he looked pissed.

Tall? Check.

Dark hair? Check.

Pyromaniac? (His hand felt uncomfortably warm on my arm and I could feel it through the layer of my sweater) I'm gonna say check to that.

"Kol?" I asked.

And he gave a small nod before started dragging me out of the shop.

* * *

We're walking away from the café – okay, walking was too slow. Brisk walking maybe. No, running. I'm running because while Kol was brisk walking, his hand tugging on my wrist forced me run to keep up with his longer legs. His grip was too tight and I was starting to chafe.

"Hey, um, Kol?"

So eloquent, Care.

He grunted in response.

"Is it always that…that _extreme_? The practice tests?"

He let out a snort and spared me a glance with those searing dark eyes. "That's the light stuff."

Whoa. It's going to get worse? I mean, throwing mailboxes around wasn't really that bad compared to giant robots but what kind of tests were the Gifties supposed to go through? I thought it was just going to be a bunch of teachers in costume, trying to mug me in an alleyway.

I guess not.

"I'm Caroline." I say after a minute of silence. Kol is still tugging me along and the awkward silence, now draining itself of the adrenaline is making me fidget.

Kol whips his head around to look at me. "What?"

"Caroline. My name's Caroline."

He stops walking and turns to me fully.

"You're Caroline Forbes. You're seventeen and a Junior. You're the daughter of Principal William Forbes and Police Chief Elizabeth Forbes. You're an honor student, a cheerleader, head of the prom committee, and student body vice president. You've dated three boys, one of which is your close friend, Matthew Donovan. Your favorite color is pink, your favorite food is Cheetos and your favorite movie is Finding Nemo." He finishes with a flourish and I could only blink.

"How-"

"They gave me your file and I like to do thorough research." He explained like it wasn't creepy at all. "Did I get something wrong?"

I narrowed my eyes at his arrogance. See? Gifties were such pricks. No wonder their teachers were being so hard on them. They totally deserved it.

"Yes." I bit out, glaring at him some more. "I'm_ head cheerleader_ and my favorite color isn't pink but dusty rose. Do your research properly, Sherlock."

With that I walked away, leaving him to follow me.

* * *

Kol took me home and left just as quickly. Homes were restricted for the tests which I was glad for since I couldn't stand another minute with the hothead.

Dad came home a little bit later and I helped him make dinner. Mom came home usually in the middle of dinner or after so we usually made more for leftovers so she could heat them in the microwave if she stayed later at the police station.

We made idle chit chat during dinner just random topics of no importance when Dad asked about 'My Hero' aka Prince Fire breather.

"I met him today during a practice test. They threw a mailbox into the café I was in." I answered my Dad with a shrug and he looked concerned.

"Are you okay? Did anyone get hurt?" He asked. When I showed him the band aid hiding the small cut on my arm, he frowned more and looked trouble.

"Usually the practice tests are pretty light. They aren't supposed to involve anything that can cause real harm to the civilians..." His voice trailed off and he seemed lost in thought. I watched him lost in his own thoughts before he spoke again. "Just tell me if something like this happens again."

* * *

Nothing as exciting as that happened again for the next three days. If anything I barely saw Kol at all, if not for the smell of smoke in the air I would sometimes get a whiff of I would think that Kol didn't even exist.

I went through the daily routine of my life. Cheer practice, prom committees, student council meetings, homework and the occasional visit to the bookstore since the cafe we liked to go to was still being renovated. My friends and I hang out at the lounge area and just talk about school and the woes of being a teenage girl.

None of my friends were chosen for Citizen Protection so they've been asking me about Kol. And I could only tell them what I knew about the little I knew of him from our one meeting.

"He's tall, has dark hair and eyes and he's a pyrokinetic."

Dana perked up at that. "Ooh, an Elemental? They're usually the most interesting ones, embodying their element all. So is he like fiery and stuff?"

I blinked. "You could say that."

"So how hot is he? No pun intended."

I rolled my eyes. "Just scorching but he's a total prick-"

My sentence was cut off as three masked men, all in black, entered the bookstore, holding the shotgun and rifles. One of them quickly closed and locked the only door out and stood guard there. The other two proceeded to shout at us and force every person in the bookstore to the ground, clutching each other in fear.

Dana whimpered beside me on the rug in the lounge and she looked ready to cry. I tried to calm her by assuring it was alright but one of the masked men came up to us and pointed his gun at me.

I stared up at him with wide eyes and he growled out, "Are you Caroline?"

"Why-"

He cocked his gun. "Are you Caroline Forbes?"

Dana was sobbing into my shoulder now and the man grabbed me by my arm and dragged me up, shaking me to loosen Dana off. When Dana finally let go, the man dragged me towards the other men who quickly and efficiently as they came in left the store with me helpless for an escape.

* * *

They put a bag over my head and pushed me inside a van and I tried to keep myself calm. My mom had always tried me to prepare for practically any eventuality since I could walk including kidnapping situations like this and I tried to remember what she told me.

Keep quiet, don't speak so much, remember my parents' phone numbers and try not to get myself killed. Do. Not. Panic.

Problem was, I was panicking. Quite badly. I was shaking and my hands were damp from cold sweat. I kept thinking that this would be a great time for a hero to rescue me now. Please. Before it was too late – oh please, before it was too late.

"…why does the boss want with some teenage girl anyway?" The man who sounded nearest to me asked. And I reeled in my panic to try and listen. I felt like this was important and I had to know why I was being kidnapped.

Another man answered. "Apparently something to do with legacies or whatever. I stopped listening until he discussed payment."

"Wait, what legacy-"

The van screeched with a sudden halt. And I heard the sounds of the men panicking and the van door opening. There were gun shots and shouting with what felt like forever before the van was being opened again and the bag was pulled off my head.

I almost sighed in relief as I saw Kol who untied the ropes on my wrists and then hoisted me into his arms, carrying me out of the van. I didn't look at the bodies of my kidnappers on the ground but could only stare at Kol's determined expression. He looked like a War God after battle. It was mesmerizing and I could not look away.

"Is she okay?" An unfamiliar voice asked and I turned away from Kol to look at the other boy standing there. He had dark hair and eyes but with softer, rounder features and his hair was cropped shorter. He was the same height as Kol but more muscled.

Kol glanced at me before answering his companion. "Yeah, she's fine."

The boy smiled at me and it was close to a grimace. "I'm Jeremy. Kol's friend."

"Caroline."

"I know." He explained when I looked at him questioningly."Kol asked me to track you when you were taken. I'm a Clairvoyant. I can find anyone in the world."

"And I don't have super strength." Kol dropped me suddenly, making me land painfully on my ass. Kol dusted imaginary dust off his clothes, all the while scowling at me. "You could afford to lose a few pounds, Forbes."

I gaped at him indignantly before getting up and dusted dirt off my clothes. I turned back to Jeremy cause he was a great deal more pleasant than Little Fire Boy. "Was that a practice test?"

Jeremy exchanged a glance with Kol before answering. "Yes."

* * *

When I got home, my parents were not happy to say the least. They called St. Gabriel's headmaster and asked why the practice tests were so extreme but no one was answering. Dad was pissed and Mom was determined for answers. They both started making phone calls and I finally just went up to my room for some sleep when I realized they didn't plan to stop for a while.

The next morning, I went down for breakfast and found Dad in his office, talking to someone on the phone. He finally hung up and looked exhausted, like he hadn't had any sleep which must be the case since he was still wearing clothes from last night.

I pushed open the door more and entered the room. "Daddy?"

He looked up at me with tired eyes, heavy bags under his eyes and the lines of age on his face more pronounced than usual. He looked haggard. "Care bear, you're up."

"Is everything alright?"

He looked conflicted for a minute before answering. "I guess there's no point in not telling you. I just got off with phone with Headmaster Lockwood. Turns out Kol was expelled just right before that incident with the café."

I blinked, trying to absorb this information in. "Expelled? But the practice tests-"

"-are not really practice tests. Someone has been trying to harm you, sweetie. And we don't know who. Kol has been voluntarily protecting you this entire time."

My head was spinning. "But why would anyone want to hurt me?"

Before Dad could answer, the knockout gas filled the room and all I saw was black.

* * *

I woke up cold. And that I realized was because I was in a dark, dingy apartment and the A/C was on full blast. I also had no blanket.

I scowled at this before realizing that yes, I was kidnapped. Again.

_Oh hell. _

I looked around the small room and tried to find a way out. The only door was locked and when I looked out the window, learned that I'm on the 20th floor. This was just getting better.

I didn't have much on me when I was kidnapped so I was still in my pajamas with my messy bed hair. The only thing I had on me of importance was the peridot ring my nana had given me before she passed away when I was seven and they took that away.

Damn it. I really liked that ring.

The door was slammed open with a bang and a tall man, probably in his mid to late twenties entered the room. He was just a bit taller than me with pale skin, dark blonde hair and a full mouth. His green eyes were the same shade as my peridot ring as he held up with one hand. "Missing something, love?"

I refused to rise to the bait. "What do you want?"

He smiled a sinister grin before tossing my ring into the air, catching it effortlessly as it fell.

"What do you want with me?" I kept asking. "Who are you?"

"So many questions. Does Kol tire of your incessant babbling or does he just set your hair on fire to shut you up?" He chuckled. "He used to do that to Bekah before her powers developed and she started freezing his hands."

There was something familiar in the way he spoke, like he knew Kol for years. And I felt like there was puzzle here. But I did not have nearly enough pieces to get an outline to start and put it together so I just stared at my kidnapper as he kept playing with my ring.

When I was too quiet for too long, he stopped. "Do you know much about your grandmother?"

"Just the basics. Nana wasn't much for sharing." I answered briskly. Wondering where he was getting at.

"Well, let me help educate you then." He gestured to the lone chair at the side and I obediently took a seat. "Your _nana_ was a very special woman. Everybody knew who she was. Because everybody was terrified of her because of her powers."

I stared at him in complete disbelief. "What are you talking about? My grandmother was not-"

"Gifted? Oh she was. Helen Coleman -as she was called back then- was notorious for her ability to steal the abilities of other Gifted individuals, simply with a single touch. She acquired_ millions _of powers over the years and at some point was the most powerful individual in the world.

"That was until the Heroes stripped her of her powers and prevented her from ever stealing again simply with this ring." He twirled the peridot ring in his fingers. "This little piece of jewelry neutralizes the power of anyone wearing it. Helen agreed to wear it as long as no harm came to her family."

I tried to reason with this lunatic to no avail. "Even if all that was true, my Dad's not Gifted. And the Holocene Gene is hereditary."

His peridot eyes had a knowing gleam in them. "I know, darling. But you forget that the gene can skip a generation or two before appearing once more. Your father's not Gifted but _you_ are."

He laughed at my expression of pure horror and denial. "You poor thing, just had no idea did you?"

"You're insane. I'm not Gifted."

"Why do you think your nana left this ring to you in her will? Sentimental value? _Oh no_. She knew and so did your parents. Didn't they insist you wear it at all times?"

I tried to deny it. "No, no, no, no – that is not true! I can't be…"

"Gifted? Believe it, pet. You know it's true."

It was a good thing I was sitting down or I would've fallen to my knees. This was too much information to take in. My nana, the old lady in the photos who my Dad talked about when he had too much scotch, was the most powerful individual in the world at some point? And that I was Gifted too? It can't be true, it can't-

"Caroline," I looked up at his first usage of my name and watched as the peridot ring in his hand turned black and became ash. "I showed you mine. Now show me yours."

"But I don't-"

"Oh, don't be shy!" He pulled me up by my arm and pressed himself against me, with his hands like brands on my shoulders. "Do you know St. Gabriel's school motto? '_Ad __vestras __mundi __munera_' - Your gifts are for the world to see."

I shook my head in panic because I did not know what power I had or how to use it. But he was having none of it and took out a silver pen out of his pocket and placed it in my hands. I watched it instantly turn black and into ash.

But that was-

"_Incredible_. Replication without taking the ability or affecting the person you absorb from." He grinned. "You're going to be so much fun."

"Not for you, Klausandra." A familiar voice said and at the doorway Kol appeared. He looked more bruised than I last saw him and smoke was wafting off his clothes. "Forbes doesn't want to be your BFF."

"And I was so looking forward to braiding her hair." 'Klausandra' retorted sarcastically and Kol grinned.

"Always knew you were a poof."

"And I always knew you'd grow up to be a fop, little brother."

Wait, little brother?

"He's your brother?" I practically exclaimed and the two men didn't even flinch.

"Long story, Forbes. Tell you later." Kol told me and turned back to his 'brother'. "Klausimodo, give up already and stop embarrassing yourself."

"I think you should do that, e-Koli. I have this area surrounded by my men."

"The Salvatore brothers and Bonnie Bennett have taken care of them, along with the help of our siblings who were more than eager to help spoil your plans." Kol pointed out with a smug grin. "And your hostages? The Gilberts and Tyler Lockwood have already gotten them out and secured them."

Kol's brother was looking very pissed off right now and shoved me away a bit too hard that I stumbled and almost fell to the floor as he stalked towards Kol. They were a foot apart and staring right into each other eyes as he growled out, "You will never defeat me!"

"I already did." Kol replied sardonically. "Our parents are outside the door. Oh, I'm sorry! _My _Dad and our Mum are there. No one still knows who or where _your_ father is, Woe-Is-Klausy."

It happened quickly. I saw Klaus hands reaching for Kol to turn him into ash and I reacted. In that millisecond for his fingers to touch his brother, I threw a strong gust for fire at Klaus enough to engulf him completely in flames.

* * *

Kol stopped the fire before Klaus could die but he was still badly burnt and would be in the hospital for a while until some Giftie with regenerative abilities can donate him some blood. I met Kol's parents briefly as they took away Klaus and also Kol's other siblings who spoke to Kol in a corner for a few minutes before leaving as well.

I got to meet Kol's other Giftie friends such as Bonnie Bennet (a telekinetic), Damon Salvatore (a flyer), Stefan Salvatore (super speed), Elena Gilbert (aerokinetic), and Tyler Lockwood (super strength).

"You alright?" Kol asked me as I started to look faint and pulled me to the side and away from the group.

"Um, they're sort of overwhelming me right now."

"I know they can be a bit much but once you get used to them, they're alright."

"I mean their abilities."

Being around all these Gifties made me feel like an air balloon being filled with too much hot gas too fast. With Klaus and Kol, I barely felt the replication because of the stress I was in at the time. But now all the new powers were making me feel dizzy and bloated.

"Klaus said my nana stole powers by touching people. I haven't touched any of your friends and yet I can feel their abilities already replicated."

"That's because your ability isn't Ability Absorption like your grandmother. It isn't Ability Replication like Klaus thought it either. What you have is something else." Kol explained. "You can absorb and replicate their ability just by being in a person's presence. It's almost instantaneous and it means you can gain any ability you want."

The realization dawned on me. "Like my nana did. She became the _most powerful individual_ _in the world_. She had _millions of abilities_."

"_Billions_ actually but-"

"Kol! I'm not enjoying this, okay? All I want right now is to go home, hug my parents and go take a long nap. And tomorrow, I'm gonna go back to school and live the rest of my life as a Normie."

Kol snorted. "You're not a Normie, Forbes. Never have, never will. The only reason you weren't in St. Gabriel's with us was because of your grandmother."

"She was just trying to protect me!" I protested. I would not let him talk ill of my nana like that. He didn't really know her. And no matter what, my nana was trying to protect me from these band of lunatics they called Heroes.

"Nevertheless, she left you vulnerable for any Villain to go after you once they made the connection." Kol said. "And I seriously doubt you can go back to life as a Normie now. The neutralization ring is gone and the only one who makes it is in space so you might be waiting a while. Trying to master abilities is a bitch and I'd like to see you try and plan prom when you're accidentally setting things on fire."

I glared at him and his matter-of-fact tones and logical reasoning for crushing my dreams. "You're ruining my life."

"No, I'm helping you begin it." Kol countered before smirking and tucking errant, messy blonde curls behind my ears. "You look like hell. Better not look like this on your first day of classes, Forbes. St. Gabriel's does have standards."

I opened my mouth to protest because there was no way in hell I was attending his freaking school and have to see him and his cocky smirk everyday but he leaned down fast as lightning and I was overcome by soft lips and hot breaths.

_Kol Mikaelson was kissing_ _me _and all I could do was stay still in shock before the heat became too much and I responded. All the stress, shock, panic, fear of the last few days had caught up to me (and I would blame it on stress and insanity later) but I kissed him with all the wild abandon in me and all I could taste was smoke, spice and Kol.

Then he pulled away the heat still engulfing as both and he leaned our feverish foreheads together and smiled genuinely for the first time I've seen him. "This is gonna be fun."


	11. make you love me more than you do

**Sorry for the delay. College is quickly draining the life out of me. I'm taking up Psychology and I'm on two school organizations, the Psychology department's newspaper and theater so I'm mostly busy. Also I've been writing more poetry than stories lately so that's why I haven't gotten around to doing these. But anyway, I'll try to write more when I have the time.**

**"Caroline or Kol is a celebrity. The other is a fan/stalker? I think with your flare for darkness, you could have fun with this one!" -CoffeeFanatic87  
**

**"Caroline by Alex Clare for kind of obvious reasons xD" -Sloane Clover**

* * *

I want her. And I don't mean in just a sexual way. I want her in every way a man can want a woman. And even beyond that.

I want to touch her blonde hair, feel how soft the curls are in my rough fingertips. I want to smell the curve of her neck and inhale her perfume – cherry blossoms, I knew. I want to trace my lips on the fragile, paper-thin skin of her pale wrists. And I want to explore the valley between her breasts with my tongue as she trembled underneath me.

I want her.

I've wanted her ever since she was fourteen and she uploaded that video of her singing 'Eternal Flame' on Youtube. I've wanted her since she won that cheesy singing competition and got her record deal. I've wanted her since I bought her album from the store and listened to the melody of her voice crooning out sad notes and happy beats. I've wanted her for so long it's all I can remember now.

I want her.

What do I have to do to get her?

* * *

I remember the first time I saw her. She's signing autographs at the Grammy's and I've been standing there at the front of the crowd for six hours. She exits the limo and lets the paparazzi take a few photos before going straight to the fans. She smiles right at me and waves as girls and boys around me shout her name.

I stay still like a rock against the current.

She signs my photo of her first. It's a photo of her she uploaded on Twitter. It's my favorite one of her. She's just woken up and her curly hair is messy and twice the size of her head, her eyes are still red-rimmed from sleep and her lips are pouty as she smiles at the camera. She looks like any other girl in that photo, not a girl with a multi-dollar record deal, and I loved her more for it.

She giggles when she sees the photo and then asks my name.

"Kol." I tell her, trying to keep calm.

Deep inside I'm jumping up and down, my blood is thrumming with excitement. I wish all these people were gone and it was just the two of us. I want to take her away from the lights and screams and go for some pistachio ice cream – her favorite, I know.

"Okay. Thanks." She hands me back the photo and I stare up at her for a moment, her eyes locked with mine. Those blue-green eyes are hypnotic, more so in person. And she smiles one last time before moving away to other fans.

I watch her until she's just a speck of white satin before looking down at her autograph.

_Cole,_

_Thanks for all the support!_

_Caroline XOXO_

Well, at least I got to meet her.

* * *

I honestly don't even like concerts. It's crowded and loud and you could go blind from the constant flashing of cameras. The only consolation was, of course, Caroline. When she's on stage, she just shines, practically like the sun. She loves to perform for people and you can feel it. I love seeing her on stage and it made up for the hundreds of idiots I had to share it with.

Caroline is nearing the end of her concert. It's a ballad. One of my personal favorites cause I love it when she sees sad songs. I love the croon of her voice as she gets the melody out.

She's at the piano and staring down into the keys as she lets out the words. I just stare directly at her from the front of the stage and not the screen. I like to watch the expressions on her face as she says the last lines.

The last note rings out and there's a moment of silence as her hand reaches up to wipe at her tears. This song always makes her emotional. She wrote it about that asshole that broke her heart. I would kill him if she asked me to.

I didn't like it when she cried. I wanted my Caroline smiling and laughing all the time. Except for maybe when we're sharing words in bed or cuddling in front of the TV. I wanted her happy, that's all I wanted.

The audience starts clapping and cheering and Caroline smiles tearfully at the crowd, almost like she's looking right at me.

* * *

I finally got to really meet her in December, a week before Christmas. She's in New York for her last stop of her tour and I've been following from state to state since her start in her hometown in Virginia. It's freezing outside the venue where I decided to wait before the show started two hours from now. I could go back to my hotel room but I don't want to miss out on anything or have to beat the crowd getting in later.

Then it happens like fate. Caroline exits out of the building, followed by some of her band mates who are trying to stop her from going.

"Caroline!"

But she ignores him and keeps on brisk walking towards some other direction. Her band mates keep shouting at her to come back but she doesn't so one of them throws his hands into the air and stomps back inside. "Bitch."

I rein in my anger at the dick for calling Caroline such a foul name but decided to opt for the chance of finally getting to talk to my dream girl. The rest of her band mates don't even notice me as I shuffle past them and follow the direction Caroline went.

I run for a minute or two before spotting her, her blonde hair like a beacon in the dark, grey landscape. She's sitting at a bench, arms wrapped around herself, trying to stave off the cold. Her coat is too thin and she'll get sick if she doesn't get warm. Cold is bad for the vocal chords too but I'm sure she knows that.

I approach her slowly, quietly and stop a foot away from her, blinking and trying to look cool as the weather. "Hey."

She nearly jumps as she looks up at me. A scared look passing over her before it's replaced by a sour look. "What do you want?"

I shrug. "You look cold and I thought-."

"Fuck off, perv!" She gets up to walk away instead and I follow her.

"Hey, wait!"

"What do you want?" She doesn't stop to look at me, just keeps on walking. "Don't talk to me, okay? I'm not in the mood for creeps like you so could you just leave-"

I grab her arm and twirl her around, her hair whips my face and I blink before she slaps me. My hand stays on her arm though as I wince and gasp at my sore cheek. "Fuck!"

"Just let me go, okay?" She practically whines. "I've had a bad day, okay? I just wanted a moment of peace before I had to perform for a bunch of screaming brats and instead I have to deal with you!"

"I'm not a creep." I mumble out and let go of her.

She pats imaginary lint of her coat and turns to walk away again.

"What's your name?"

She stops and turns around slowly, eyes confused. "You don't know me?"

I shrug. "Am I supposed to?"

"'Caroline Forbes', doesn't that ring a bell?" She looks even more confused when I shake my head no. "I won _The American Dream_ two years ago and my album went platinum last month. You have to know me!"

I shake my head. "Nope. No bells."

She lets out a sound of disbelief. "You have got to be kidding me. You seriously don't know me?"

I shrug. "Maybe I have heard of you. Do you sing like really cheery pop songs?"

She looked appalled. "I'm more than just a pop singer, okay? No matter what freaking _Rolling Stone_ said! I'm an artist!"

I nod in mock understanding. "Of course."

"Everyone says I'm just a passing fad and that they'll get sick of me in a year or two but I do have talent! I don't sing with auto tune and I write my own songs and-" She stops her rant and glares at me. "You're just laughing at me, aren't you?"

I couldn't hide my grin. "You're adorable when you're angry."

She huffs. "Whatever. I'm gonna go stop talking to some random creep on the streets. I have a concert to get to."

"Right, performing 'for a bunch of screaming brats' as you said."

She blushes in embarrassment. "I didn't mean that. I love my fans, I do. It's just sometimes they can be a bit much."

I shrug again and she rolls her eyes. "Is that your reaction to everything?" She mimics my shrug. "God, you're like Mr. No-Care."

"Whatever you say, Ms. I-Do-Have-Talent."

She almost smiles but replaces it with a glare. "I'm done talking to you."

She walks away and I don't stop her this time.

* * *

It's her last day in New York and she's out having a late lunch. The concert must have really tired her out as always and she trudges into the restaurant, her entourage behind her and the paparazzi trying to get in but they can't get in through the door because of the security.

Caroline beelines for the table in the middle of the restaurant and orders what I guessed she'd order - lamb, vegetable soup and chocolate cake for dessert.

From my table, I have a good view of her as her entourage all talk with each other. They don't talk to Caroline whose texting on her mobile with someone. It's probably her best friend, Bonnie Bennett who's attending university in Kentucky. Caroline misses her whenever she goes on tour (she always tweets how so).

They have their dinner and when dessert comes Caroline blinks at the black orchid on her plate with the chocolate cake. And she reads the napkin the waiter left.

_Dear Ms. I-Do-Have-Talent_

_Lighten up._

_From Mr. No-Care_

She looks up and tries to look around the restaurant for me but I'm already out the door before she can get a glimpse.

* * *

_Are you stalking me?_

I stare at the DM I found when I opened my Twitter. There, clear as day from Caroline's personal twitter.

_Why would I?_

A response is quick.

_Because you were at the restaurant a week ago and sent me the orchid. And it was you, wasn't it, Kol?_

I smile.

_It seems you know my name now. How did you track me down?_

_I have my ways._

_Wait, who's stalking who now?_

_Don't flatter yourself._

I laugh.

_I'm not if it's true. Do you have a crush on me, Caroline?_

_Ugh._

_Is that a yes?_

_You're impossible._

_You like it. You do have a crush on me._

_I do not!_

_Then why are you stalking me?_

_Because…._

_Because? That's not an answer, Caroline._

_Because you're weird. And I like it._

_See? You admit it now. Caroline Forbes has a crush on me. I'm calling TMZ!_

_Ugh!_

* * *

I'm watching the Ellen Degeneres Show. I don't particularly watch it at all but Caroline is going to be on so as a supportive boyfriend I have to come to the studio and watch from the audience.

The usual dancing and laughter go about as Ellen enjoys it so until she asks Caroline a question, "So this new song of yours, is it about anyone?"

"Yeah." Caroline giggles. "It's about someone in my life."

"Like a boyfriend?"

She nods. "I brought him here."

Camera zooms on me.

Ellen grins. "Oh, hey, boyfriend! What's your name?"

I smile. "Kol."

* * *

"I hate touring." Caroline murmurs into my shirt as we cuddle on the couch, her on top of me and using me as a giant plush toy. "Can't I just quit?"

"You love it too much." I reach up and thread my fingers through her hair. I can smell her perfume. Cherry blossoms like how I imagined.

"I think I might quit," Caroline says. "It just doesn't feel worth it anymore."

I stiffen for a moment before I continue stroking her hair. "Why not?"

"Cause I wasn't really that happy. I mean performing is fun but everything else that came with it was shitty." She giggles before raising her head to look down at me. "I'm finally happy and it's because of you. I don't need anything else."

I stare at her, not understanding what she means. "Am I really?"

"Yeah. I really just want to go back to being like everyone else." She sighs. "I'm so tired and I'm not even twenty yet."

I couldn't grasp what she was talking about. Why would she want to be like everyone else? That's why I loved her, beautiful, bright Caroline like the sun. How she was on stage, not…not…just like everyone else, someone average.

"You shouldn't quit." I tell her.

She blinks. "Why not?"

"Because it's not you. You're not you if you stop performing and touring. You won't be Caroline."

She stares at me before smiling. "I get what you mean. But singing isn't just what makes me Caroline, you know."

"Why? What else is there?"

She completely stiffens before getting up and staring down at me in complete disbelief. I sit up and stare up at her as she sputters. "_What else is there?_ I don't know! I guess there's more to Caroline Forbes than being a star! Maybe if people stop focusing on the idea people have of me in their heads!"

She stops as if realizing something and stares at me wide-eyed. "Like you do." Her voice is small, surprised. "You don't love me."

I'm quick to object and I get up. "Don't be crazy. I love you! I love you so much!"

"You love _Caroline Forbes the star_. You don't love _Caroline Forbes the ordinary girl_." She shakes her head, fighting tears. "My mom was right. This was going to happen. No one's going to love me for me."

I try to protest but she shakes me off and runs out of my apartment.

* * *

_CAROLINE FORBES CALLS IT QUITS WITH BOYFRIEND?_

I glare at the tabloids as I see them on the newspaper stand. There my relationship with Caroline is poked and prodded at mercilessly for everyone to see, everyone making assumptions of what went wrong, everyone putting the blame on me 'for not being able to handle having a girlfriend with fame'. Fucking idiots, that isn't the problem. That is never the problem.

Caroline said I'm in love with Caroline the star, not Caroline the ordinary girl but that isn't true because Caroline Forbes just isn't ordinary, that's not who she is. She was born to be a performer and she's fantastic at it. I saw that and cherished her for it so why is she angry at me? What is she angry for?

I need to find out.

* * *

Her first day of touring is its back in Mystic Falls, Virginia. This is her hometown which she told many stories to me about. She loves this place, small town and all. And she hates having to leave it to live in LA most of the year so coming back there is something special to her.

The bouncer lets me in the venue. They all know me. I befriended them when Caroline and I first started dating. I know for a fact, they have a taste for whisky which I always mind to bring with me when I visit during touring.

Caroline is at her dressing room, getting ready. And everyone goes quiet when they see me. Caroline's expression looks regretful and sad and it makes my stomach flip. She gestures for everyone to leave us and I stand where I am until we're alone.

She continues the job of her make-up artist, adding more blush on. "What do you want, Kol?"

"You look cold." I repeat my first words to her.

She smiles for a moment before it's replaced by a grimace. "No, seriously." She stops everything and looks at me. "What do you want?"

I don't miss a beat. "I want you. I want us back together. I want you to call me your boyfriend and I want to be able to call you mine."

"You never had me." She bites out. "I mean, you never loved _me_."

"Yes, I did!"

"No, you didn't!" She half-shouts. "You love me when I'm like this. Glammed up and ready to perform for millions but you don't love me when I just want to attend college or go have lunch with Bonnie. _You loved the idea of me_."

I keep shaking my head no but she dismisses me already. The bouncers come and take me away. I try to fight but they're too strong and they throw me out into the street s with an apologetic look and nothing more. They slam the doors close and I don't know what to do.

* * *

I want her. And I don't mean in just a sexual way. I want her in every way a man can want a woman. And even beyond that.

_Kol, don't contact me again…_

I want to touch her blonde hair, feel how soft the curls are in my rough fingertips.

_I sent you that restraining order for a reason…_

I want to smell the curve of her neck and inhale her perfume – cherry blossoms, I knew.

_You seriously hurt me…_

I want to trace my lips on the fragile, paper-thin skin of her pale wrists.

_Please leave me alone…._

And I want to explore the valley between her breasts with my tongue as she trembled underneath me.

_I don't love you anymore…._

I want her.


	12. like serious, like crazy

**Midterms are mostly over for me. Thank God.**

**"Caroline Kol baby Fluff. I like you'll have fun doing this. xD" - RippahGoneWolf**

* * *

Caroline glared at Kol and started ranting, pointing a finger at him in her tirade. "You're unbelievable! Making sure our son will have you as a first word by subliminal messaging! Have you no shame, Kol Mikaelson?"

She didn't wait for him to answer. "I put up with the post-it notes on his crib, the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and his baby food all spelling 'Dada'! - but the teddy bear custom made to say 'Dada' when he hugs it? Enough is enough, Kol!"

"Like you haven't been whispering 'Mama' in his ear every night?" Kol countered. "You may have won the war of naming him but I'm winning this one, Caroline! Just give me this!"

Caroline shook her head at her husband before turning around to go back up the stairs and back to where little William Nicholas Matthew was waiting for her in his crib.


	13. with all the blood i lost with you

**Seph is back with a vengeance. As you can see I'm combining as many prompts as possible. I apologize for any plot holes but in my defense the show's too messed up sometimes to make a linear storyline out of it.**

**The whole Immune storyline is inspired by the character of Lydia Martin in Teen Wolf and fadingtales' Eternal Contemplations with twists of my own.**

"**Kol meets caroline before klaus :)" – KlarolineCinderella**

"**Ummmm, how about a human caroline & vamp. Kol. Kol saves Caroline from being attack..." – Guest**

"**So...Kol is trying to get Caroline to date him,but she keeps rejecting his advances,so he enlists Klaus's help,and of course,the rest of his over-bearing family gets ,and Klaus is not interested in Caroline" – Sarah**

"**So what if Kol was sort of like Klaus in the way that he wanted Caroline, and she starts to fall for him. But in the episode that he gives her a blue dress and theres a ball and theres a horse and stuff... so ya :))))" – nadya12**

"**Caroline could have known about the plan to kill Kol, and she betrays her friends and does what she can to protect him.**

**Also where Caroline gets attacked and kol saves her. Maybe she's about to get raped.**

**Or Caroline saves kol from getting killed" – AngelinaGuerin23**

* * *

Caroline's summer of her sophomore year begins with a funeral. Elena's parents' funeral to be exact and she does what every good friend does and sits with Bonnie and the Gilbert siblings at the front pew. Elena is in between her and Bonnie with Jeremy at her right. She tries to hold Elena's hand but the brunette brushes her off and reaches for Bonnie's instead.

Caroline ignores the sting of the rejection and instead tries to focus on the service instead, listening to the platitudes and counting how many times Jeremy lightly pounds his fist on his thigh. He's jittery with too much pent up tension and Caroline doesn't know if he's under the influence or just anxious. She doesn't bother to ask since sweet Jer-bear has turned into Jer-the-Grizzly-I-Will-Tear-You-Into-Pieces-Just-T est-Me-Fucker-Bear.

Elena's eyebrows furrow after a bit and she glances at Jeremy's unending movement and Caroline sighs inwardly before grasping Jeremy's fist, unfolding it and placing it back on his thigh. She can see Jeremy frown at her from her peripheral and she doesn't say a word.

God, she hates funerals. But it certainly wouldn't be the last of the year she would later realize.

* * *

Caroline spends the next week in Miami with her dad…and his new boyfriend. Caroline dislikes Stephen at principal alone since this man did make sure her dad wasn't living in Mystic Falls anymore. But her dad loves the guy and she loves her dad so she _tries_ to be civil. Put emphasis on 'try'.

Stephen's daughter, Hannah, on the other hand has crawled directly from hell it seems and when the girl _accidentally _spills coffee on her new shoes, she is now _persona non grata_ in Caroline's book.

After Caroline, _accidentally_ switches the contents of Hannah's shampoo with Nair (and sadly Hannah caught in time before she ended up looking like Britney Spears in her breakdown days), her dad and Stephen have enough of the 'girly squabbling' and force–_encourage_ the girls to make nice via forcing- encouraging Caroline to go with Kate to a concert.

Caroline could kill herself because John Mayer is so not her type. Well, not since the whole Jaylor incident which Hannah claims John is totally innocent in. How dare she?

"Behave, Caroline." Her dad whispered into her ear when she hugged him goodbye.

"No promises." She muttered.

"No promises on Jimmy Choo on your birthday then."

Caroline pulled back and frowned at her dad. "That's blackmail."

Her dad grinned. "No, it's incentive."

* * *

Oh, Hannah dares.

The concert was amazing, of course (since she was able to trick Hannah into watching TSwift instead). Taylor always delivers. But after the concert Hannah kept insisting that Taylor was the guilty one in the Haylor debacle because Harry Styles can do no wrong.

Caroline is seriously debating pushing Hannah into an oncoming car before Hannah spots some of her friends and the ditzy bitch flocks to them and decides to ignore Caroline's existence thereafter.

Caroline just rolls her eyes and walks away.

* * *

Okay, Caroline is definitely an idiot. Having been raised by a sheriff and someone from a long line of sheriffs, she really should've known better than to walk home by herself in the middle of the night especially with hooligans following her and looking very much not wanting to stop her for a chat.

She brisk walks shy of running and before long they are in pursuit and she runs with everything in her. The streets are deserted and the area far too quiet, her blood pumping and the sound of her heeled boots pounding on the pavement loud to her ears.

She turns a corner and immediately freezes when she hits an end.

Well, fuck.

She hurriedly opens her purse and fishes out her phone, dialing her dad's number and waiting for him to pick up.

_You have reached Bill Forbes' phone. Unfortunately I cannot come-_

Fuck! Not voicemail!

She is in near tears now and she wants to throw her phone at the brick wall but she can hear her pursuers behind her now and all she wants to do is scream.

So she does.

Quite loudly really and sounding a bit like a dying pelican.

Well, that's embarrassing.

"Well, that's embarrassing."

She and her stunned would-be rapists all turn around to look at the new arrival in the horror story that is Caroline Forbes' life.

Now this is just unfair.

Even under extreme duress, Caroline could appreciate hotness when it is presented and here is six feet of perfect porcelain skin, with chiseled features framed by dark hair and reaching his even darker eyes all presented in a leather jacket.

It's like Christmas came early (sans being about to be sexually assaulted, of course).

"Hello, mates." He speaks again. English lit bursting with amusement. "What you got here?"

One of the goons speaks up. "None of ya business. Fuck off before you regret it."

Mr. Dark Angel in Leather just grins and it's dangerous and thrilling. Caroline almost swoons (or maybe that's from the adrenalin, maybe not). She practically glistens with hope. He's going to save her. He's going to take those turds on singlehandedly and win like some hero in an action movie where she'll fall into his arms and he'll carry her to safety. He is going to-

"Alright then."

What?

"I see you have your plans." He gestures towards her. "I'll leave you to it."

Wait, wait, wait – he's not going to walk away, Is he? No, that can't be!

He begins to walk away and pure panic shoots through Caroline and she practically yelps. "Wait!"

Come back!

He stops and turns to her, eyebrows raised in question. "Yes?"

"Don't just leave me here!" She gestures wildly. "Don't leave me with them!"

He shrugs. "Darling, as much as I would love to tear them apart for you, I am a very busy man concerned with many important things, I assure you. So if you'll excuse me…"

She's gaping at him in disbelief.

Oh my God, what a jerk! He is really going to let her get raped and killed her because he's busy? Oh she's not letting him walk away. He doesn't get to divert from the script in her head!

"Hey, you! The one who still thinks leather jackets are cool past the 80's, we are not done here!"

He comes back to look at her like she is a complete lunatic.

"_You_ don't get to walk away here!" She intones, explaining it to him with fierce determination. "_You_ are supposed to be saving me! _You're_ supposed to beat the fuck out of those guys and then I'm going to faint in your arms and you'll carry me to your apartment where you'll let me sleep on your bed while _you_ take the couch!"

He blinks in confusion. "Why would I take the couch?"

"Cause you're a gentleman as heroes should be!" She frowns at him and gestures to the hooligans. "Now save me. Get to it!"

He blinks at her for a good moment before he moves so fast it's like he freaking teleported. He's just suddenly in front of the goons, his arm_ inside_ the chest of one and pulling out a bloody heart with the ease of twitching a finger.

The goons are gaping at him now before he moves like lightning again and then there are three individual bodies laying on the ground beside their ripped out hearts,

Caroline is ready to throw up.

The boy turns to her with his bloody hands opened as if to say 'well, there'. "Satisfied, sweetheart? Was that _heroic_ enough for you?"

* * *

Caroline can't stop staring at the blood on his hands and she still wants to vomit. Meanwhile, the boy – uh, whatever he is – is cleaning the blood of him with one of the hooligans jacket that he ripped off.

Caroline would really like to vomit now.

She knows she can't run away. He is blocking the only exit and she already knows he moves faster than the speed of freaking light and she contemplates for an insane moment whether she should've just let him walk away. I mean with the goons, she knew what she was up against. With this guy, oh heavens…..

"So, what's your name?" He asks when he's wiped his hands as clean as he can. His white hands are still stained pink and reeking of blood though but he doesn't seem to mind.

"W-What are you?" She practically shrieks.

And he frowns, rolling his eyes. "I guess I have to kill you now."

"W-What?"

"Don't ask redundant questions, sweetheart. It falls too much into the dumb blonde stereotype and it's not doing you any favors."

"Huh?"

Her brain is totally fried.

Fast as shock he's there in front of her, just a foot away and she's staring into pools of ink drowning in milk chocolate. "Usually I would kill you but I really do have things to do so rain check on your death?"

His irises widen and he says, "Forget me."

And then he's gone.

And she doesn't forget.

* * *

Caroline finally arrives at her dad and Stephen's house dazed and confused. Hannah's still not home and all she wants to do is crawl into bed and don't come out till September. She just doesn't understand how her life went from a war on her future stepsister to having her very reality ripped to shreds in front of her.

But she can't sleep, not when there are so many questions rummaging in her head, screaming to be answered.

So she does what any girl would've done – Google.

Vampires?

Huh.

Come on, life isn't _Twilight_.

Werewolves?

Life isn't_ Twilight_.

Demi-god?

Possible.

* * *

Okay, so you know those girls in movies and books that when something weird happens they try to solve it on their own and don't tell their parents and they only tell when their lives are in grave danger because they think their parents won't believe them?

Well, that was going to be Option A for Caroline but seeing as Caroline really dearly does value her grasp on reality, she goes to her dad. Because Bill Forbes is logical and smart and can help with the mystery unraveling…or at least call an excellent therapist for her if need be.

She wakes up late, having stayed up the night 'researching' but ending up only ordering the entire _Percy Jackson _series on Amazon and her dad is in his office talking to someone on the phone when she waits outside the door just itching to bother him.

He finishes his call and doesn't even glance her way but greeting just the same. "Hey, Care bear. How was the concert last night?"

She smiles and enters the room, leaning on his desk to really get his attention. "Daddy…"

He's looking through some documents and absentmindedly goes, "Yes?"

She hesitates before pushing through. Even if she is just crazy and she imagined the whole thing last night, at least someone knows about what she saw. She doesn't have to hide it and let it ruin her life because that's what always happens to those girls, right?

"Daddy -in a completely hypothetical scenario – if _hypothetically_, last night after the concert I walked home and was –_ hypothetically_ – followed by some guys who cornered me at an alley…"

Her dad looks up so fast and stares at her, alarmed. "Care bear, did you get-"

"And _hypothetically_, some guy comes and saves me by say – _hypothetically_ – moving at the speed of light and ripping out their hearts like it was nothing…what would you think that guy was?"

Her dad is massaging his foreheads as if trying to cure a headache. "Honey, I think you should sit down. It's time for the talk."

* * *

After the longest history lesson ever, Caroline reminds herself to online later to order some Anne Rice novels.

Her dad has pretty much explained all the phenomena in Mystic Falls and a part of her feels betrayed that her parents kept this whole vampire thingy a secret from her but her thoughts really keep focusing on something. "Daddy, this compulsion, does it not work on some people?"

"With years of meditation and control, it is possible."

"But how about for someone who hasn't gone through that?"

"What do you mean?"

"The guy – the vampire – he tried to compel me last night. He wanted me to forget him." She explained. "But I didn't. Why is that?"

She can't read her dad's eyes but she thinks she sees fear in them. "I don't know, sweetheart."

* * *

Summer comes and goes and the new school year is greeted by new boys in town - specifically, the Salvatore brothers who hang around Elena like puppies fighting over a chew toy. The older one, Damon, tries to compel her when he first meets her but again, it doesn't work on her.

Her dad still hasn't told her why the vampire Jedi mind tricks aren't working on her. He claims to not know why but she has a feeling he does and just won't tell her. She wonders if the reason really is something to be feared.

She contemplates whether to tell Elena her new boyfriend and said boyfriend's brother are part of The Walking Dead but remembers her dad's warning not to tell her friends about 'the great vampire secret' since they wouldn't believe her anyway.

But he seems to have forgotten how bad she is at keeping secrets.

And she ends up telling Bonnie and Elena who stare at her in complete disbelief.

"Stop making up stories, Caroline." Elena tells her. "There's no such thing as vampires."

"Magic isn't real, Care." Bonnie agrees.

That sad moment when your parents are right.

* * *

When it all comes out in very grandiose fashion, Caroline just sits back and watches it all go as crazy as she expected.

_Vampires aren't real, Caroline._

Well, Elena just find out both Salvatore brothers are rocking the Dracula lifestyle.

_Magic isn't real, Caroline._

Bonnie just learned she's a witch and a pretty strong one at that.

_What are you, Caroline?_

Caroline's gonna get back to them on that.

* * *

Damon bites her one day.

He's had a bad day. Just finding out the love of his immortal life wasn't in the tomb and that she's been avoiding him all this time because she really wants Stefan instead. Gotta sting like hell but does he have to bite her?

She knows he's on self-destruct mode but leave her out of it. It's not her fault his life is a wreck.

"Caroline, Caroline…." Damon says when he sees her, hands going to her shoulders one of them pulls on her hair. "Have you come to laugh?"

"No," She frowns. "Just checking on you. Stefan asked me to."

"Ah, Stef…" He grimaces. "_Perfect, nice Stefan_."

He keeps playing with her hair and she tries to shrug him off but he keeps on. "You like him better too, don't you?"

She rolls her eyes. "Stop being such a –"

She can only let out a yelp when his teeth go for her neck and he gets a mouthful of her blood before stumbling backwards directly in the path of sunlight shining through the window.

Damon stares down at his bare fingers - _no ring!_ - and then up at her in total awe and confusion.

Well, what the hell?

* * *

Caroline ends up missing the car crash Tyler and Matt were in when she tries to help Elena and the gang with the escaped vampires in the tomb. A couple of them corner her in an alley – _again. What's with her and alleys? She should really avoid them _– and they're going straight for her throat when they all fall to the ground, clutching their heads in agony.

She moves past them and sees Stefan collapsing beside a frantic Elena.

After the entire mess is over with, Caroline goes to the hospital and finds Tyler at the waiting area, looking guilty and terrified.

"Tyler…"

He looks up at her and his usually cocky air is gone. "Matt's in surgery. Internal bleeding."

* * *

Days later, Matt greets Caroline at the carnival she had worked so hard planning. He seems perfectly okay after Damon gave him his blood so he can heal but when Matt tries to compel her into coming with him into an alley – goddamn alleys – she shouts for Stefan so loudly everyone stares at her.

The Salvatores arrive quickly and pull Matt away from any possible victims.

"Trust me, you don't want to feed on that one." Damon says to him, as the new vampire struggles to break free.

* * *

No one knows what Caroline is really. So far only two things have been made clear.

She can't be compelled.

Ans her blood makes a vampire human for a short period of time.

They haven't tested the second one so much since Caroline's quite iffy about being bitten much to the merry gang's frustration. But with a few needles, she lets Matt have a small dose and he spends twenty minutes under the sun before he starts sizzling.

She gives a bigger dose to Stefan who is able to have no murderous vampire rage for an hour.

And she doesn't give Damon because he considers her the vampire's version of the Black Plague.

* * *

Tyler successfully transitions to a werewolf with Matt and Bonnie's help. And Caroline lets him get a dose of her blood just to see if it would work.

For one full hour, he claims that he's never felt more peaceful.

And they begin to wonder what she is all the more.

* * *

Magic doesn't work on her.

She finds that out when she and Damon go to rescue Matt and Tyler from being sacrificed for that stupid Sun and Moon curse. The Hybrid and his minions have come to town and now they are trying to stop hell from unleashing on earth.

Witches throw spells at her but they seem to bounce off her and they can only gap in surprise before Damon shoots them with Alaric's gun.

"Getting more and more mysterious as time goes by, Barbie," Damon tells her as they go down the cellar.

* * *

Tyler bit Damon so it's Caroline-the-Cure-to-Everything-Supernatural-Forbe s to the rescue.

"You look like shit." Caroline says when she sees Damon on his bed, sweaty, ashy skin and coughing out a lung. "I feel like I should take a picture."

"I'm dying, Barbie." He wheezes out. "Leave me to die with some dignity."

She rolls her eyes and sits down on the bed, bouncing a little and he grimaces when he gets jostled. "No, you're not gonna die. I'll give you some of my blood."

He grimaces. "No, thank you."

"Oh, don't be a baby!" She chides, rolling up her sleeve. "If this works, you get to hunt down that freaking hybrid later for causing this and if it doesn't work, well, you die. Your pick."

"I must be in hell," he mutters before groaning in misery. "Alright, alright."

She offers her wrist and he bites down. He takes a mouthful than another and another….

"Damon…."

He's not stopping. She tries to grab her arm away.

"Damon!"

He lets her go, falling back into the pillows and staring at the ceiling with his clear blue eyes. "That was…I feel…"

"Human?" Caroline supplied, grimacing at her wrist.

"Human." Damon reiterated in awe.

* * *

Months seem to go by without any news of the crazy, old, troublesome hybrid and after Elena's birthday, they start to get complacent. It feels almost normal. No danger, no deaths, just homework and pep rallies like it should be.

Of course nothing lasts for long and Caroline wakes up on her eighteenth birthday with a box on her bedside table with a platinum bracelet inside the velvet case. There's no card.

* * *

Her Dad comes back to town after many months and they clue him in about everything that's happened last school year.

"Care bear, how does a hybrid and ritual sacrifices not cause to call me?"

* * *

"Hello, sweetheart."

She turns around to see the last person she expects. "You…"

"Me." Kol Mikaelson aka the vampire in Florida aka the Original hybrid grins at her. "How've you been since we saw each other face to face?"

"Better." She answers, staring at him suspiciously as she moves past him with her coffee, taking a seat at a table. "Been quite peaceful since you and your minions left town."

"I sincerely apologize for disrupting the peace then." Still grinning, he follows her and takes the seat adjacent to hers at the table she picked. "But I do have some urgent business here."

"Really now?" She tries to play it cool because he can't know that Elena's still alive. "What about?"

"Of the doppelganger business," He answers. "Know anything about that?"

She shakes her head. "Nope."

He smiles and takes her coffee from her, taking a sip. "You're a terrible liar. You have to work on that."

He sets the mug down and his eyes sear into hers, trying to decipher her thoughts. "It's a pity you can't be compelled. This would make this so much easier."

She takes her coffee back. "Real pity then."

He leans down on his elbows, staring at her with those dark eyes of his. Ink drowning in chocolate. "Tell me something though. Do you know what you are?"

Her heart speeds up. Could he have the answers she's looking for or is he just baiting her? But he was over a thousand years old, if anyone could know it, it'd be him. "No. Do you?"

He doesn't answer just takes her phone off the table and fiddles with it before giving it back to her. "That's my number and the address of my new house in town. You should come over one of these days. Maybe Saturday? My siblings have been dying to meet you."

She stares at him confusion. "Why would I need to meet your family?"

He doesn't answer just stands up and waving her off when she protests. "Remember, Saturday!"

* * *

"I'm not going."

Damon glares at her. "Barbie, you have an opportunity here to find out more about the freaking Originals and their motives. Find out some advantage we can have over them. Don't be selfish!"

"Damon," Stefan cuts in before turning to Caroline. "You don't have to do this, Caroline. We're not gonna push you."

Caroline stares between the two brothers then turns to look at the rest of the group for their input. None of them look like they were for that idea but they don't look against the idea either. It's up to her then about whether to go inside Casa Mikaelson by herself or to boycott the whole crazy plan.

Her survival instincts scream: run. Her reckless side says: hell yeah.

* * *

Caroline arrives promptly at the Mikaelson home for lunch as they agreed upon. Kol greets her at the door with a beaming grin, ushering her into the dining room where four vampires sat, staring at her with much interest. There were three men who look older than Kol and a girl about her age.

She tries to smile but good God, she's terrified. And they have to know it too.

"She looks like she's ready to bolt, Kol." The one man with dirty blonde hair remarks, smirking at her.

Kol snorts as he pulls a seat for her. "Shut up, Nik."

Caroline takes her seat shyly as Kol takes the one beside her, on her right. To her left is the girl, blonde with icy blue eyes. Like Malibu Barbie.

"Kol, aren't you going to introduce her to us?" The girl asked, prompting Kol to start.

"Caroline, these are my siblings: Elijah, Finn, Klaus and Rebekah." Kol points to each one. "And just so you know, they are pathological liars. Whatever they say about me to you is a boldfaced lie."

"Kol, just fears you'll think he's rather odd after we tell you more about him." Elijah says with a small smile. "For example, when he was a young boy-"

Kol clears his throat.. "Oh, enough about me. Let's eat. Shall we?"

* * *

Kol is glaring at his siblings like a petulant child, making them laugh even more. Caroline tries to stifle her giggles as his siblings make fun of him at his expense, telling her the most embarrassing stories about the hybrid. Finn in particular told a hilarious story about Kol when he brought a mule and a comb to a whorehouse some century ago.

"I'm so happy you're enjoying yourselves." Kol groused, crossing his arms over his chest and slouching in his seat.

Rebekah snorts. "After all the times you gave as flack over our relationships, I think it's more than the right time for some payback."

"We have been waiting quite a long time for this." Finn adds.

That made Caroline curious.

"Why didn't you guys embarrass him with the other girls?" She asked.

Klaus laughs. "What other girls? He never brought any of them home."

Caroline freezes in her seat, her eyes wide. Wait, she's the first girl he's ever brought home? But he's over a thousand years old! That's…that's….

Kol is shooting glares at his brother. "I'm going to bite you."

Klaus doesn't back down though and scoffs. "Like it can kill me, brother. Give me a real threat."

"How 'bout just get Caroline to give some blood to last a few hours?" Rebekah suggests. "That should be fun."

"I think I still have my mace around if you like." Finn smirks at Kol.

"Now, now, children." Elijah says as if to scold before adding. "Let's be modern. Use the flame thrower."

"You bastards!" Klaus exclaims in between laughs.

* * *

She's in Kol's bedroom, sitting on the bed and staring at the wooden ceiling fan. Kol is lying down beside her and she feels oddly comfortable in his presence. God knows why.

"Are you going to answer my questions yet?" Caroline asks, pouting down at him even though he couldn't see because his eyes are closed.

"Maybe."

"_Kol_." She pokes one of his robes with her finger. "I'm going to leave."

He opens one eye before sighing. "Fine. Ask away."

"What am I?"

"A girl."

Well, isn't that specific.

"No, as in – _what_ am I? How come vampires can't compel me? How come my blood makes vampires and werewolves human for short periods of time? How come spells don't work on me? _What am I_?"

Kol sits up and stares into her eyes and answers. "You are something very rare – you're Immune."

"Immune?" She parroted.

"Immune to magic and basically anything of the supernatural variety. Your blood cancels it out. Something in your genetics, a glitch, gave you immunity to these things. It happens to one in millions. Very rare." Kol explained. "The last one I met was a man in the 17th century and most of the others were rarely recorded that's why none of your friends could find out what you are."

"Just how _immune_ are we talking about here?"

"I could force my blood down your throat and snap your neck right now and you will not come back. I can stab you and give you my blood but you will not heal with it. I could get my witches, _all of them_, to cast a curse on you and there will be no effect on you." Kol continued. "_All magic_, light or dark, _cannot _affect you directly."

She tried to process that information.

_Immune._ She now had a word for what she is. She was Immune to magic.

She looked at him again with a final question, :"And what does that mean for me?"

"Some creatures - vampires, werewolves - would do anything to become human. You'll find yourself a commodity for a bit." Kol answered. "But don't worry, I'll protect you."

And she finds herself wanting to believe him.

* * *

Caroline is getting her books for her next class when she feels someone behind her. Almost like a sixth sense, she knows who it is and she doesn't turn to see.

"Hello, sweetheart."

She doesn't look back but walks towards her class, he follows quickly getting in step with her. "What are you doing here?"

"Today's a school day." He answers like that makes all the sense in the world.

She glares at him and wills him to explain like a normal person.

He relents. "I'm attending high school. I never got to in this century, always busy with trying to break my curse and all so now I'm making up for last time."

She doesn't believe that for a second. "Mm-hmm. So you're a Junior?"

"Senior," He grins. "But Bekah's a Junior."

"_Bekah_?" She echoes and turns when said girl in question appears and loops her arm with hers.

"Come on, we have to go. We're going to be late for French." The blonde Original tells her before dragging her off.

* * *

Kol is everywhere and he can't take a hint. Caroline has been quite obvious that she doesn't want to start anything with him. Having lunch with him and his family that day was just to find out about what she is, nothing more really. She doesn't plan to be his freaking girlfriend and she's told him as such.

His response is to be freaking irresistible.

Have you _seen _Kol Mikaelson? It isn't fair. How come evil always come in pretty packages? That accent with the facial structure is a deadly combination only Satan must've come up with.

She's trying her best not to go crazy but then comes that faithful gym class he plays basketball, gets really sweaty and takes his shirt off and Caroline could've cried.

It isn't fair.

Damn him to the fiery pits he is spawned from!

* * *

Caroline's at the bookstore, looking through the shelves for something to occupy her time with.

Nothing with romance and handsome boys.

Nothing with sex.

Nothing about vampires.

Nothing about werewolves.

Nothing, _nothing_ with male characters named 'Cole' or any variant of said name.

She doesn't know how she ends up at the children's section but there she is.

"Hello, duckie."

She looks up to where she's sitting on the carpet and sees one of the Original brothers, Finn. "Oh, hello."

She knew him to be the quiet type and there is something about him that doesn't make her want to pull her hair out like his siblings.

"What are you looking for?" He asks, crouching down beside her and looking at her selection.

"Something…." That doesn't remind her of Kol. "…good."

He pulls out a small picture book and hands it to her. "You might like this one."

She stares at the cover of _Beauty and the Beast_ and frowns.

He smiles at her before leaving. "Good day, duckie."

Dammit.

* * *

Caroline doesn't even know how she ends up shopping with Rebekah. All she knows is that she's in a dressing room trying on different things that Rebekah says would be 'fantastic' on her.

A few minutes later, she has shopping bags of clothes and accessories. "Rebekah?"

"Yes?"

"How come most of the things you picked for me are blue?"

Rebekah smiles innocently, _too innocently_. "It looks good on you."

The next day when she went to school wearing a blue blouse, Kol smiles at her in delight. "That's my favorite color, you know."

Dammit.

* * *

Jeremy's birthday is coming up so Caroline decides to buy him some art supplies. She doesn't really know much about those but she figures she can ask someone. She's going through the aisles, looking at different pencils and God, there are many when a voice greets her, "Hello, Caroline."

She turns her head slowly, dreading and yet knowing who it is. "Hello, Klaus."

"Are you shopping for anything in particular?" He asks, all politeness and charm and she grits her teeth.

"Yes, I'm trying to get something for Jeremy. His birthday is coming up."

He picks up a pack of pencils and hands them to her. "These are good."

"Thanks." She mutters and puts them in her basket. She tries to turn and leave but he stops her.

"Would you mind modeling for me?"

She stops and stares at him in confusion. "Why?"

"You're very beautiful." He smiles at her. "And Kol has asked to have a painting of you done. We're leaning towards a motif with-"

"Okay, that's it!" She drops her basket and virtually runs out of the store.

Enough is enough.

She is so done.

* * *

Caroline pounds on the door of the Mikaelson home and even kicks it at some point. She's angry, sick and tired of the Originals' harassment. She's had enough and she is telling Kol so. Hybrid or not, she's not afraid of him.

But Kol doesn't answer the door, Elijah does.

"Caroline?"

She moves past him and inside the house. "Where is he?"

Elijah knows who she means instantly. "He had some business to attend to. I can take a message for him if you'd like."

Caroline tried to calm herself but she's too worked up. "Tell him, I'm never going to fall for some evil, crazy hybrid because I for one value myself and I would never stoop so low. Tell him, he should stop harassing me with his siblings and his superior need to take off his shirt in gym because I can't handle staring at him without wanting to jump him – I'm only human! I can't resist temptation when it comes in the form of someone like Kol Mikaelson! _Why is he doing this to me_?"

She realizes too late all the things she just revealed to Elijah and suddenly decides that maybe she could dig a hole in their garden and never come out.

Elijah smiles though and pats her light on the arm. "Caroline, he fancies you. That's it."

"_Fancies_?" She repeats the word like it's a curse.

"Yes. I'm afraid Kol has always had a problem with being subtle but especially in his courtship of you. I fear his affections for you are driving him quite mad." He chuckles. "It's amusing really."

_It's not! _

"He's never been like this before with anyone." Elijah sighs and shakes his head off. "I fear, Caroline, he's not going to give up. He can be very patient when he wants to be."

"_How_ patient?" She asks in misery.

"He waited a thousand years to break his curse." Elijah points out. "And I don't think your lifespan will be that long."

* * *

Caroline glares at the invitation, wanting to chuck it at the garbage bin but thinks twice about it. She opens the box that came with it and instead and discovers a blue dress inside – no, periwinkle. A gown fit for a princess.

She could die.

The guy just doesn't give up, does she?

Whatever.

She closes the box.

She's not going.

* * *

There's someone knocking at her door. She goes down the stairs and answers the door only to be greeted by Kol Mikaelson in a tux.

The horror never ends, does it?

He looks at her outfit and frowns. "Why aren't you ready yet?"

"I'm not going." She defiantly tells him. "You can't make me."

He sighs. "I know. That's why I brought help."

"Caroline!" Rebekah pushes Kol out of the way. "Invite me in so we can get started on your hair. We only have three hours before the party and you have to look stunning!"

Caroline tries to protest but Rebekah glares at her and she knows she can't be compelled but Rebekah Mikaelson can inspire the fear of God in anyone with a single look. She invites the Original girl in and doesn't invite Kol. He patiently sits on the porch swing as Rebekah 'beautifies' her.

* * *

Caroline arrives at the ball on Kol's arm and everyone is staring at them. She's perfectly aware of her own looks and Kol is a category on his own and she knows how they must look – perfectly contemplating each other, her light with his dark.

Looks of envy and awe follow them as they make their way and it's when she's spinning in Kol's arms later that she feels a lightheadedness that has nothing to do with dancing.

She feigns a headache and goes outside for some fresh air, Kol follows her anyway and she stares at the lone horse outside, wishing Kol would go near its rear so it could kick him down. Ugh.

"You like horses?" Kol asks and she makes a non-committal noise. "They're lovely, aren't they?"

"I've always liked them." He continues. "When we lived here many centuries ago, there were wild horses running through the forests all the time and I used to watch them. How majestic and strong they were."

"Wow." She deadpans. "You should do voiceovers for National Geographic."

He grins at her, chuckling. "Funny."

She giggles and for a moment just stares at him, how the lights twinkling around them seem to reflect in his dark eyes, how the wind is making his hair dance and the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallows, staring down at her lips….

"Let's go inside!" She says quickly, going past him to her narrow escape.

That's much too close for comfort.

* * *

When she goes inside, Damon drags her away to somewhere more private. "You're not giving in to him, are you?" He demands.

She shakes her head. "No, of course not!"

"Cause you know he _is_ pure evil. He's the reason Jenna and God knows how many people have died. You can't trust him."

A spark of irritation that is completely irrational ignites in her and she spats out. "As opposed to your death count, Damon." What a hypocrite this guy was. "But don't worry I'm sure you'll catch up."

The look on Damon's face is rather memorable and she goes past him and back to the party feeling lighter.

* * *

She's known about her friends wanting to kill Kol for a while but they never bothered to include her in their plans (because of Damon probably) citing that she could be a liability.

B y how exactly though? It's not like she has plans to divulge information to Kol. She isn't his girlfriend. She isn't obligated to him in anyway. She isn't his anything.

She's…she's just the girl he's obsessed with for the moment until he gets bored and he will. After all, she's just a human and he's an indestructible immortal.

But when she overhears their plan to get rid of Kol once and for all, she can't help but feel doubt.

* * *

"Have you ever wanted to be human again?" Caroline asks him. They're in the living room and she's playing chess with him on his I-pad.

Kol shrugs and Caroline pokes him in the stomach. He grunts and answers. "I may have thought about it once."

"Well, if you could become human now, would you?" She persists. "I mean, if my blood can make you _permanently_ human then-"

"You'll die."

She stops, her breath hitching. "What?"

"In order for your blood to work, I need to drain you, _every last drop_." He stares into her eyes with determination. "And I have no plans on doing that."

"But you'll be human again." She keeps pushing.

He frowns. "If I'm going to become human again, it's certainly not to be just alone. What would be the point?"

* * *

"They're going to kill you."

* * *

"Whose side are you on?" Damon shouts in anger. "Why are you trying to save that evil scum? What's wrong with you?"

"The same thing that's wrong with you." Caroline retorts, looking between him and Elena. "The same kind of madness."

* * *

She exposes her neck to him. "Drink."

His hands tighten on her waist, firm but not painful and her heart keeps dancing in her chest, "I don't want to."

Her hands cup his face and trace the contours until his eyes close and he sighs with what emotion she doesn't know. "It'll be okay."

His lips go to her neck and he murmurs words she can barely hear. "I…love…you."

* * *

_Dear Caroline,_

_I am proud of you, no matter what._

_Dad_

* * *

Kol holds her in his arms and tries to wait for a pulse.

Nothing.

And then….

Caroline gasps and takes in air. Kol sighs in relief.

* * *

"I love you too."


End file.
